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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” in recent was the growth of India. One of the few countries worldwide that had tripled their hostcount in 2005 over a year earlier. In the second half of 2006 there was a “sudden”, and very large, increase in China. Of course it will be necessary to see developments in other years to understand the meaning of this trend

With over 57 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 28 countries (of fifty in Asia) with over 5,000 internet hosts (they have 99.97 percent of the total hostcount in Asia.)

	Number of hosts December 2007	% of Asia	Per 1000 inhab.
Japan	36.803.719	54,9	288,0
China	13.113.985	19,6	10,0
India *	7.000.000	10,5	6,3
Taiwan	5.121.607	7,6	222,3
South Korea *	3.000.000	4,5	63,1
Turkey	2.425.789	3,6	33,2
Israel	1.397.740	2,1	200,1
Thailand	1.046.148	1,6	16,0
Singapore	954.475	1,4	264,5
Hong Kong	816.695	1,2	118,6
Indonesia	709.388	1,1	3,2
Malaysia	383.220	0,57	14,4
Arab Emirates	329.348	0,49	74,6
Philippines	272.976	0,41	3,1
Pakistan	183.719	0,27	1,2
Saudi Arabia	128.153	0,19	5,4
Cyprus	120.052	0,18	156,7
Viet Nam	119.489	0,18	0,77
Kazakhstan	33.307	0,06	2,2
Kyrgyzstan	30.261	0,05	5,8
Lebanon	25.174	0,04	6,6
Nepal	22.563	0,03	0,87
Jordan	19.925	0,03	3,6
Uzbekhstan	17.097	0,03	0,65
Brunei	15.347	0,02	40,9
Bhutan	9.180	0,01	13,3
Syria	7.845	0,01	0,42
Sri Lanka	7.010	0,01	0,35
Asia	67.000.000		17,0

Japan has a dominant role in Asia, proportionally greater than the United States worldwide – as we see in this “pie” chart that includes the eleven countries in Asia with over 500,000 internet hosts (that have 87 percent of the online activity in Asia.)

11 countries

Japan’share is decreasing, but it’s still (with three percent of the population) over half of the total hostcount in Asia.

If we remove Japan from the graph, this it he picture for the other 15 countries in Asia with over 150,000 hosts.

15 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 25 countries in Asia with over 10,000 internet hosts.

Internet hosts per 1000 inhabitants
in 25 countries in Asia

Hostcount compared to income (gross domestic product) confirms large differences, but with a different profile.

Internet hosts in relation to income (GDP)
in 25 countries in Asia

There are relevant differences compared to the density based on population, but also in relation to income internet use varies largely in Asia, as in all other parts of the world.

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 and income.

While in other parts of the Chinese ethnic community there is high density of 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.)

In India there have been plans for several years to encourage wider use of the internet. But only in the last two years the results began to be felt in hostcount figures. 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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