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Asia to make up half Net users

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CIOL Bureau
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MELBOURNE: Asia was likely to make up about half of the global Internet

population by 2003, Japanese Internet investor Softbank Corp's chief executive

Masayoshi Son said on Tuesday.

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Almost half of the current 300 million Internet users are in the United

States, but the total number of users was expected to swell to one billion in

three years time, Son told the Asia Pacific Economic Summit hosted by the World

Economic Forum.

"I think the landscape of Internet users, the contents, the technology,

the market place ... Asia would have lots of opportunities, especially the

Chinese, and the Indian market would be an interesting one," he said.

Son said Softbank recently started putting a lot of effort into China,

although its investments were now mainly in the US and Japan.

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"In Silicon Valley, people talk about IC revolution which means India

and Chinese revolution. It's very apparent that Indians are very, very talented

in Internet and IP," he said.

Son said a business partner in China had told him that in Shanghai, 90 per

cent of apartments have optical fiber connections. This year, the number of

Chinese mobile phone users surpassed those in Japan and in six or seven months,

would surpass the United States, he said.

"Wireless is going to become a very important part of Internet

connectivity. The one thing that the Japanese market is a little more advanced

in than even the United States or the European market is wireless," he

said.

Japan's top cell phone carrier NTT DoCoMo already had 10 million users

connected to the Internet, and the number was growing every day, he said.

(C) Reuters Limited 2000.

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