Japan: The State of the Net VIIThe latest InterNIC survey Every six months, Network Wizards takes an Internet-wide survey on behalf of InterNIC, the governing body of Internet domain names. It provides a moderate guess at the growth of the Internet, and specifically the number of hosts (or servers) in the various worldwide domains. In the January '98 survey, Network Wizards changed its methodology for gathering data. The July '98 results are out, with few surprises. The total number of hosts increased from 29.7 to 36.7 million. Japan's hosts increased only 16 percent, but it was able to hold onto the number 2 spot. The Netherlands jumped up 35 percent to take the number 7 spot away from Finland, and Australia grew the slowest with a 13 percent increase. As a comparison, the number of .com domains grew 26 percent and the total number of domains increased by 24 percent. In my last report, I started keeping track of the number of hosts per capita. With the July survey results, the number of Finland's hosts has achieved an amazing ratio of 1 host per 10 people. The US is second with 8 hosts per 100 people. Japan is the 2nd lowest in the top ten with 11 hosts per 1,000 people. Hosts per capita are an accurate indicator of the rate of Internet penetration into each country. Yahoo, Goo rank as top search sites The most popular Internet search engines among Japanese users are "Yahoo! Japan" of Yahoo Japan Corp., "goo" of NTT Advertising Inc. and "Infoseek Japan" of Infoseek Corp., according to the Sixth Internet Active User Survey conducted by Nikkei Multimedia. The survey was conducted in May and June using the home page of Nikkei Multimedia, and there were 5,571 valid replies. A totalÊof 46.7 percent of users prefer Yahoo! Japan, 26.4 percent use the Goo search engine, and 16.1 percent use Infoseek Japan. Together, those three account for 89.2 percent of respondents. (Originally reported on Nikkei's Asia Biz Tech site: www.nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com/.) iMac: Tastes great, less filling Apple Computer's Green Machine, the innovative iMac, was released in Japan on Aug. 29. Sales were brisk, and given that the sales price in Japan is lower than that in the US, it may be a sign that Apple is getting serious. The retail price of an iMac is $1,299 in the States, while the retail price in Japan is \178,000, or $1,236 at an exchange rate of \144. Steve Job's brainchild was met with wild approval after its launch in the States on August 15, and shares of Apple jumped to a three-year high. Apple is spending upwards of $100 million on promoting the iMac this summer. The iMac is targeting users who want an easy and reliable way to connect to the Internet. Microsoft's Windows 98 also has staked much on Internet ease-of-use functionality, and is selling more briskly than expected. Given these two sales trends, expect another big wave of Internet users in Japan this fall. And that's good news for the PC industry, Internet content providers and anyone else doing business on the Internet.
Forest Linton is IE Group Product Manager for Microsoft Japan. His views are expressly and exclusively his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Microsoft.You can reach him at forest@gol.com.  |