Japan Casts a Wider NetThe Japanese Internet continues to grow in leaps and bounds. In fact, I believe that we are about to see an explosive growth in the number of Internet users in Japan. Why? Because of content.
by Forest Linton For Japan, 1998 will be the Year of Content. Japan's Internet service providers have spent the past three years building infrastructure and - while the situation is nowhere near ideal - there is at last sufficient Internet bandwidth in Japan. In addition, the big content providers have been gearing up to handle massive numbers of hits per day. There are already enough users online for major marketers to justify making Web investments, and investing they are. So, new content will bring more users, and more users will bring more content, and.... I think you get the picture. The Japanese Internet is on the verge of taking off and soaring to new heights.
The latest InterNIC survey The newly released Network Wizards survey shows that Japan's hosts increased by 30%, keeping Japan solidly in the number two spot. The UK jumped up 48% to reclaim third place (up from fifth), and is running neck-and-neck with Germany. For comparison, the total number of domains worldwide increased by 21%. You'll find the full survey results at the Network Wizards website: http://www.nw.com.
How many Internet users in Japan? Let's assume that 25% of these providers are already out of business or too small to matter. That leaves 1,500 ISPs. And let's say that the top 10 providers have an average of 100,000 subscribers each, and the rest have an average of 500 subscribers. That gives a rough total of 1.75 million users. Then there are the large online services: NIFTY-Serve, Biglobe, MSN, and the newly launched AOL Japan. NIFTY-Serve and Biglobe list their memberships at 2 million and 1 million users, respectively, but the number of active Internet users among members is much smaller than that (maybe 10%). Considering inactive users and multiple accounts, I believe that there are around 2 million Internet end (home) users in Japan. The three primary ways to get Internet access are through home, office, and school. Although I've guesstimated the number of home users above, I have long since given up trying to calculate the number of business and school users and have started to trust survey data more. The majority of the surveys indicate between 5 and 6 million total Internet users in Japan. Combined with online services like Nifty and Biglobe, this number could be as high as 7 million.
The coming market correction There are far too many ISPs in Japan - more than the current number of users can support. Either we will see a huge increase in the number of users (some estimate 10 million by the end of this year), or a major reduction in the number of ISPs. I predict both.
Women on the Net This is good news, as it clearly indicates that the Japanese Internet is maturing to include more consumers and not only techies. More women on the Net also indicates a major opportunity for electronic commerce, as women often hold the family purse strings, and single women in Japan often have more disposable income than men. If you feel lost in the forest of estimates and predictions, you can cry out for help to forest@gol.com.
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