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In all parts of the world there are big and changing differences in the development of the internet, but especially in the vast Asian continent that has 60 percent of the world’s population.

The “big news” a few years ago was the growth of India. One of the few countries worldwide that had tripled their hostcount in 2005 over a year earlier. Growth continues, but the available statistiscs are confusing – it isn’t clear why, but it’s pretty obvious that the hoscount for India is largely underestimated.

The opposite is happening with China, where in 2007 there was a “sudden”, and very large, increase. Such a “leap” is hadly belieavable (and there was scarce further growth in following years.) In any case, it will be necessary to see developments in further years to understand the meaning (if any) of this trend. In the meantime, in spite of the doubts, in this analysis the data for China are taken “at face vaue” as reported.

With 110 million internet hosts Asia is in third place after North America and Europe. (For a comparison with other parts of the world, see international data.)  But there are huge differences between a few countries, that rank high in internet activity on a global scale, and most of the continent that is still far behind. As we see in this chart that includes the 39 countries in Asia with over a thousand internet hosts (they have 99.99 percent of the total hostcount in Asia.)

Viet Nam

	Number of hosts June 2011	Per 1000 inhabit.
Japan	63,199,811	495.6
China	17,446,117	13.0
India *	16,000,000	13.8
South Korea *	10,000,000	206.9
Taiwan	6,405,566	277.1
Turkey	4,003,061	55.2
Thailand	2,980,010	44.0
Israel	2,185,740	294.0
Singapore	1,701,103	341.0
Indonesia	1,298,177	5.7
Hong Kong	845,018	120.7
Saudi Arabia	488,598	19.0
Phlippines	469,029	5.1
Malaysia	384,442	13.6
Arab Emirates	381,915	75.4
Pakistan	335,353	1.9
Cyprus	253,391	317.9
160,912	1.9
Iran	136,242	1.8
Jordan	120,293	19.6
Kyrgyzhstan	111,930	20.4
Bangladesh	68,987	0.4
Kazakhstan	61,205	3.9
Lebanon	56,849	14.2
Bahrein	55,498	47.5
Uzbekistan	55,088	2.0
Brunei	51,593	127.1
Nepal	43,928	1.5
Palestine **	29,344	7.3
Yemen	25,927	1.1
Bhutan	14,582	21.3
Oman	11,698	4.1
Sri Lanka	9,315	0.5
Syria	8,114	0.4
Mongolia	7,966	2.9
Cambodia	5,489	0.4
Kuwait	3,289	1.1
Maldives	3,007	9.1
Laos	1,661	0.3
on .asia domains	1,267
Asia	110,000,000	26.8

* Hostcount figures for India and South Korea appear understated at this time
and therefore the numbers are arbitrarily, but not unreasonably, increased.
This is so also in the charts.

The “invention” of a generic “asia” top-level domain turns out to be quite useless.
1,267 hosts is an extremely small number compared to 110 million in Asia.

If we exclude Japan from the data, density
in the rest of Asia is 11.8 hosts per thousand inhabitants.

The world average is 66 hosts per thousand inhabitants.
Only nine countries in Asia have higher density.

** Palestine, not yet formally recognized as an independent state, can’t have a national top level domain as such. But the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has been able to have the .ps tld – that works practically in the same way. As we can’t know to what extent it is used in Palestine or by people living in other countries, the density figure is uncertain. In any case, the tld is a relevant tool for national identity.

Japan has a dominant role in Asia – as we see in this “pie” chart that includes the eleven countries in Asia with over 500,000 internet hosts (that have 97 percent of the online activity in the continent.)

11 countries

If we remove Japan from the graph, this it he picture for the other 12 countries in Asia with over 400,000 hosts.

12 countries

“Small” countries with less than seven million inhabitants, such as Israel and Hong Kong (that continues to have its own identity online, separate from China) or with less than four million, as in the case of Singapore, have greater activity online than much larger countries.

The differences are obvious in this graph of density (hosts per thousand inhabitants) in the 28 countries in Asia with over 40,000 internet hosts.

Internet hosts per 1000 inhabitants
in 28 countries in Asia


 
For better readability of the chart, the size of Japan is reduced by 25 percent.

As observed in the international data analysis, in the two largest countries in the world internet use (even with recent gowth) is still very limited in relation to population.

While in other Chinese-speaking countries and communities there is widespread internet activity, in mainland China the use of the net is severely centralized and repressed (and there is strict censorship also on all other information and communication.)

The figures for India in this analysis are deliberately increased, to a level that is quite reasonable though it has not, so far, been “mathematically” measured by statistics. Of course the potential is much larger.

The picture can be summarized in a map that includes the central and southern part of the continent, from the Middle East to East Asia.

Internet hosts per 1000 inhabitants

This map si more “colored” than it was in past years.
There are recent developments
(especially, but not only, in India and China).
Density in many countries is still very low,
even when compared to the Asia average,
but there are fast changes.

Only a few countries have high density and they are isolated places on the map. There would be a few tiny (though relevant) “dots” if we could identify specific urban areas in some low-density countries. But the general picture confirms a very unbalanced situation in Asia.

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