The online world has no boundaries and can be accessed from all over the world with an internet connection, the potential of doing business online to the world is huge. With only a small investment in domain name, hosting and a website, any scale of business, large or small can start marketing their business to the world through the internet.
However, it is sometimes difficult for new companies to target and market their businesses to everyone on the internet as the internet is huge, online businesses can get lost in the world wide web.
In addition, local and small businesses may not be ready to do business internationally online. Hence, it is wiser to break down the internet world into countries, then target and market to these segments.
Here, we want to highlight the potential of marketing to the internet users in Asia and especially Indonesia. The first thing we should look at is the statistics of Internet usage of the world and funnel down to the internet usage and penetration in Indonesia.
Looking at the internet usage of the world by countries by Miniwatts Marketing Group. Asia is leading other geographic regions in internet usage. Asia, with the largest population of the world of 3,776,181,949 compared to rest of the world population of 2,899,938,339. Its no wonder Asia has the largest internet users compared to other geographic countries of the world.
When look deeper into Asia and see the Top 10 countries with the highest internet usage in Asia and you will be surprised!
Indonesia is ranked No.5 of Asia's leading internet usage country with over 25 million users in Indonesia (2008). See Internet Marketing Indonesia. Compared to other more developed Asian countries, it's a surprising lead.
This lead is mostly due to the large population of Indonesia. With over 237,5
So as you can see, Indonesia should, soon climb to the number 3 spot of the largest internet usage in Asia. A 5 million increase in one year over 2007-2008 and a 10.5% penetration.
It has been announced that the government of Indonesia is targeting 50 million users by 2009 which by no means a challenging task to increase internet usage by two fold or a 20% penetration (with 20% of the population using the internet).
Having said that, China has 19% of its population use the internet. Neighboring Asia countries like Singapore has 58.6% and Malaysia has 59% of its population use the internet, not to mention Japan has the highest percentage of internet users achieving more than 73.8% penetration. Hence with the right support in infrastructure and commitment from the government, Indonesia should be able to achieve its target.
Indonesia Mobile Phone Subscribers
The government of Indonesia is however very confident that a 20% penetration should be easily achievable in 2-3 years especially when Indonesia has over 80 million in mobile phone subscribers, a 34% penetration in its total population which is expected to increase to 120 million by 2010 according to SMS Marketing Indonesia. With the support mobile technology and trend towards mobile phone internet, plus the increase installation of wifi spots throughout Indonesia. Indonesia internet usage future has great potential.
So with all the internet users statistics, Indonesia should see the huge potential in marketing their businesses on the internet for future growth. The increase in internet usage and penetration in Indonesia means that Indonesia is developing, its people are becoming more educated and sophisticated with the increase use of the internet media.
Bobby Leong an entrepreneur from Medan Indonesia wins numerous awards such as Youngest Chartered Marketer of the World, Young Marketer of the Year Award, New Wave Marketing Award and Entrepreneur of the Year Award offering advice on Internet Marketing Strategies at www.BOBmarketing.com
