According to stats compiled by vnunet.com, China will overtake the US next year to become the world's largest broadband internet market:
"The number of broadband subscribers in China is growing at a staggering 79 per cent annually, and will reach 79 million in 2007, consulting firm Ovum predicted in research released today.
Recent estimates from Leichtman Research suggest that the number of broadband connections in the US, currently the world's largest market, is around 51 million."
Like John Dowdell, I believe this will provide many opportunities to developers all over the world. The globalisation of web apps is a trend that I've been monitoring closely, particularly in my ongoing series on International Web Apps.
In my post Top Web Apps in China, I discussed how China's mobile sector currently has more innovation than the general Web sector - because of the high penetration rate of mobile handsets and highly developed short message, ringtone and ringback tone services. However the risks for non-Chinese people in this market include tough government regulations, plus the language and cultural barriers. I also noted in that post that China already has some very big Internet companies - Baidu, Sina, Sohu among them. Check out my China web app overview for more details.
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BTW, according to Business Next, a bi-weekly Chinese language technology magazine, as of this July there were 123 million total Internet users in China - including 13 million who access the web via mobile devices and 30 million who shop online regularly. The Chinese government expects to have the world's largest web-enabled population within 3-5 years. Also interestingly, QQShow (http://qqshow.qq.com/), an avatar-based social network, reportedly has 500 million members.
Posted by: Isabel Wang | September 6, 2006 5:50 PM
I believe this article. I live in Western China and was in the far reaches of civilization this week surfing the web with people that don't have electricity or running water at a web cafe.
Posted by: Website Builder | September 10, 2006 10:43 AM
This is very interesting and to be involved in internet communication with others so far away in always a good thing. It is like live history lessons. Judy
Posted by: Judy Gormely | May 10, 2007 12:03 PM