Asia to account for half of Internet users in 3 years

Asian Economic News, Sept 18, 2000

MELBOURNE, Australia, Sept. 12 Kyodo

Asia will rapidly grow in the information technology field, accounting for half the number of Internet users worldwide in three years, Masayoshi Son, president of Japan's Internet investment firm Softbank Corp., said Tuesday.

Son cited a study showing that six months ago there were about 200 million users of the Internet around the world, with half of them in the United States, while at present there are about 300 million users, with the U.S. portion down to 40%.

In 2003, it is expected the number of Internet users will increase to 1 billion and half of them will be in Asian countries, leaving 50% to the rest of the world, including the U.S., he said in a speech at an Asia-Pacific business meeting.

The three-day conference, organized by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum, began in Melbourne on Monday.

Countries in Asia, such as China, are building infrastructure to allow people to connect together at low cost, but not in Japan, where telecommunications is under de facto monopoly of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT), he said.

''We are asking for deregulation in order to allow Japanese to access the world with higher speed and lower cost,'' Son said.

Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp. of the U.S., said Internet technology would further narrow the gaps between countries since computer applications are about to cross almost all barriers, even language.

Gates said that at present some countries may be blocked from others due to limitations of technology.

But in five years a lot of problems will be solved and infrastructure for communications in many countries, notably in Asia, are being built, he said in a speech.

Software has a powerful capability in supporting all languages, even those with complicated writing systems, and in the next 10 years Internet technology could provide automatic translation, Gates said.