Over 60% of Japanese use internet

77.3 million Japanese Internet users

[takagi]

The percentage of Internet users stood at 84.5% for the 40-49 age segment and 62.6% for the 50-59 age segment, respective increases of 9.5 points form a year earlier.

But in the age group 13-19, the percentage was the highest at 91.6%, up 3.5 points.

As for means of access, broadband service was the most popular, accounting for 47.8%, up 18.2 points from a year earlier.

Source: Japan's Net user population tops 60% for 1st time in 2003 [asia.news.yahoo.com]

. . . . . .users . .percentage
. . . .(million) . .population
2003 . . . 77.30 . . . . 60.6%
2002 . . . 69.42 . . . . 54.5%
2001 . . . 55.93 . . . . 44.0%
2000 . . . 47.08 . . . . 37.1%
1999 . . . 27.06 . . . . 21.4%
1998 . . . 16.94 . . . . 13.4%
1997 . . . 11.55 . . . . 09.2%

Source: pdf 2003 Internet Usage in Japan [soumu.go.jp] (Japanese only)

English summery of a similar report (White paper) about 2002 is here [kiko-net.com].

[whats up skip]

Thanks for finding this. It looks very handy. Has anyone found an English language version of the full report?

Otherwise I might get our girls to translate some of it.

[bill]

I'm not sure if this is the report or not, but there were some reports like this in the past that were not quite kosher in terms of the results. For example, they were including anyone who had an i-mode phone (or similar...most every mobile phone sold in Japan now has Internet access) as someone who had Internet access. This was a bit more controversial a few years ago, and some said they were stuffing the ballot box in terms of the average person's access.

However, it's pretty easy to see that the Internet has gone mainstream now in Japan. I think a lot of the credit goes to YahooBB for really making cheap affordable internet access a reality. It's not just their service, but their incredible marketing blitz over the past few years that has really increased awareness in Japan.

[takagi]

For example, they were including anyone who had an i-mode phone (or similar...most every mobile phone sold in Japan now has Internet access) as someone who had Internet access.

For this report about the situation at December 31, 2003 they counted users older than 6 who accessed internet with one or more of the following devices: PC, mobile telephone, TV or game machine (like XBOX?).

BTW, at that moment there were 67.806 million [soumu.go.jp] users that could access internet over their mobile phone in Japan. But the report said that they only included people who used internet through one ore more of those devices.

For those who used internet with a PC from their home, the percentages were:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . 2002 . . 2003
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Broadband . . . . . . . . 29.6 . . 47.8
ISDN (always enabled) . . 16.8 . . 13.9
ISDN (dail in). . . . . . 11.2 . . 08.2
Dail-in modem . . . . . . 44.9 . . 30.2

Broadband includes xDSL, Cable, wireless (like FWA; Fixed Wireless Access) and FTTH (Fiber).