Internet Penetration :: Computer Science

Internet Penetration Identify the different levels of household penetration by the World Wide Web in each of the following continents – Asia , Africa , North America , South America and Australia . Explore the reasons for this variation. The countries with the highest internet penetration are predominately those Western economies with strong economies and high levels of affluence. Out of the top 10 countries, European countries feature 6 times, with Sweden having the highest penetration at 73.6% of the population have the internet. Other high ranking countries include Hong Kong (70.7%), The United States of America (USA) (68.5%), Australia (67.2%), Canada (63.8%), Korea (63.3%), Japan (60.9%), Taiwan (60.5%), Singapore (60.2%) and New Zealand (56.8%). The United Kingdom compares well at 60%. (Appendix 2 Internet world stats, 2005) World wide, these 25 countries dominate over 64% of their total population; the internet penetration in the rest of the world is just 7.8% of the remaining population. However, percentages can be misleading; whilst they give a good indication of levels of literacy, affluence and behaviour, the percentage of penetration would not give an indication of size of possible market; the USA has the largest market at 202,888,307; the next largest being Japan at 78,050,000 and then the UK and German markets at 35,807,929 and 47,127,725 respectively. Whilst we have seen then that internet penetration is very strong in these affluent societies, there are some interesting developments in the emerging economies. Those countries in Asia that have traditionally had under developed economies, such as China and India , have very different levels of internet penetration; despite both countries attempting to develop their economic wealth. China , with a population of 1,306,313,812 has 94 million internet users (Appendix 1); this however translates to only 7.2% of the population. The Chinese middle class is only 4% of the population i.e. those who have household incomes of more than $20,000 but that translates into a market or 50 million people (Khanna, T) – a huge market for prospective investors in the country. This compares very favourably with internet penetration in India – where the population is very similar to China 's - 1,080,264,388.00 but there are only 18, 481,000 internet users, a penetration of 1.71% of the population. This may be due to Government intervention in China ; in a recent report ‘it has been found that China has nurtured and directed the economy ( Khanna, T 2005). In addition there is a difference in the GDP per capita – in China , the GDP per capita is $5,600, whereas in India it is only $3,100. However, in both countries there is a huge gap between the wealthiest and poorest people, both in