The nation’s Internet penetration rate reached 68.94 percent last year, behind South Korea’s 77.1 percent and Japan’s 73.85 percent in Asia but ahead of Hong Kong’s 66 percent and Singapore’s 58.59 percent, a survey by Taiwan Network Information Center showed yesterday.
“In the Asia Pacific region, Taiwan definitely ranks somewhere between No. 3 and No. 5,” Liang Te-hsin (梁德馨), an associate professor at Fu Jen Catholic University’s department of statistics and information science, said yesterday.
An exact ranking, however, is unavailable because the participating countries use different metrics in evaluating Internet usage, she said.
For instance, Japan only polls metropolitan areas, as opposed to the entire nation, she said.
The center’s survey polled about 15.82 million individual Internet users nationwide last year, or 68.94 percent of Taiwan’s population. The figure was little changed from 2007’s 15.55 million people.
The local household Internet penetration rate reached 75.46 percent last year, or 5.64 million households, with the highest concentration in Taipei and Kaohsiung.
The survey also showed that 72.99 percent of households used ADSL, while 8.69 percent used cable modem. About 73 percent of the nation’s male population used the Web, compared with 68.86 percent for females.
By age, 15 to 19-year-olds make up the primary user group, with a penetration rate of 99.45 percent, while only 22.77 percent of those above 55 years old go online, the data showed.
As Taiwan’s mobile Internet usage increases, Liang yesterday urged local telecommunications operators to pay attention to pricing as well as building a stable infrastructure to tap into this burgeoning market.
The center’s statistics showed that from January last year to last month, the number of mobile Internet users — defined as using 3.5G high-speed downlink packet access, or HSDPA, technology to access the Internet — increased 2 percent from 1.15 million to 1.55 million, accounting for 7.8 percent of total domestic Internet users.
“What will happen from now on as a result of the global financial crisis, is anyone’s guess. But I believe if carriers set out to promote 3.5G data plans either via netbook or smartphone promotions, they would succeed,” Liang said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday said that Intel Corp would find itself in the same predicament as it did four years ago if its board does not come up with a core business strategy. Chang made the remarks in response to reporters’ questions about the ailing US chipmaker, once an archrival of TSMC, during a news conference in Taipei for the launch of the second volume of his autobiography. Intel unexpectedly announced the immediate retirement of former chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger last week, ending his nearly four-year tenure and ending his attempts to revive the
Taiwan would remain in the same international network for carrying out cross-border payments and would not be marginalized on the world stage, despite jostling among international powers, central bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) said yesterday. Yang made the remarks during a speech at an annual event organized by Financial Information Service Co (財金資訊), which oversees Taiwan’s banking, payment and settlement systems. “The US dollar will remain the world’s major cross-border payment tool, given its high liquidity, legality and safe-haven status,” Yang said. Russia is pushing for a new cross-border payment system and highlighted the issue during a BRICS summit in October. The existing system
Convenience store operator Lawson Inc has registered trademarks in Taiwan, sparking rumors that the Japanese chain is to enter the local market. The company on Aug. 30 filed trademarks for the names Lawson and Lawson Station, according to publicly available information from the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Intellectual Property Office. The product categories on the application include some of Lawson’s top-selling items for use in the convenience store market. The discovery has led to speculation online that the popular Japanese chain is to enter the Taiwanese market. However, some pointed out that it might be a preemptive application to avoid others from co-opting the
STRONG GROWTH: AI-related business is stealing the limelight from products like smartphones, and appears not to be affected by seasonality, boding well for local firms Taiwan’s exports last month bounced 9.7 percent from a year earlier to US$41.09 billion, the second-strongest for the same period, as demand for almost all product categories picked up, due partly to preventive attempts on the part of suppliers to dodge potential US tariff hikes, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The growth momentum would be sustained this month at a pace of 4.5 percent to 7.5 percent, as a stable but uneven global recovery continues, Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) said. Outbound shipments of chips and informations and communication technology (ICT) products expanded by 15.5 percent and 11.7 percent
RSS