Asia World’s Largest Internet Market

Research and Markets has released “2006 Asia Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband Market Overview” which contains information on the trends and developments in telecommunications, mobile, Internet, broadband and broadcasting for the Asian region.

The report says that Asia is the world’s largest regional Internet market. They have an estimated 375 million Internet users (a user penetration of 11%) by end-2004. Asia has the lead over Europe (292 million) and North America (227 million).

Internet application in Asia is led by the economies of the region-Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. The countries have been joined by China with a penetration of 8.5 percent. China had large number of users at the end of 2005 totaling 111 million Internet users.

South Korea is the broadband leader in the region with 70 percent of households having a broadband connection by the end of 2005. The two most widely used technologies to support broadband in Asia were DSL and cable modem. By March 2006, there were 153 million DSL subscribers and 76 million cable modem subscribers in the region.

The Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) has not been strong in the region due to the competitiveness of the market. With the introduction of 3G mobile services there is an opportunity to improve ARPU.

In 2006 the Asian telecommunications market was projected to be worth close to $300 billion. The big new drivers are broadband and IP services, as well as ongoing growth in the mobile sector. Next generation networks are also making their way into the market with an emphasis on triple play services.

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