Most Asia-Pacific governments are investing large amounts of money to ensure their citizens and companies have an affordable chance at broadband, or high-speed Internet, International Data Corp (IDC) said in a report yesterday.
Revenues from broadband access are forecast to reach US$14 billion in 2008 for the region excluding Japan, IDC said, with a 16 percent annual growth rate between now and then.
The entire broadband access market totalled nearly US$6.8 billion last year, with a year-on-year increase of 38 percent, said Tim Crowley, IDC's research manager.
As of the end of last year, there were 29 million broadband subscribers across 14 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, representing year-on-year growth of 58 percent.
By 2008, the largest markets in revenue terms will be South Korea, China and Taiwan, IDC said.
"Last year, China displaced South Korea, although we estimate that the broadband penetration of households in China is still below 3 percent," Crowley said.
Other top markets in terms of broadband penetration of households are Hong Kong, with 50 percent, Taiwan at 40 percent, and Singapore, with 29 percent.
As of the end of March, 8.88 million Taiwanese people went online, the semi-official Institute for Information Industry said last week.
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