Desk Report, 07 October:

Bangladesh has been ranked fifth largest internet using country in Asia as over 80 million people had access to the internet in Bangladesh in December of 2017, which was 0.1 million in 2000.

China has been ranked the first with 772 million internet users while it is followed by India, Indonesia and Japan, according to a report carried out by ANN based on data released by the Internet World Stats.

In the last decade China has grown tremendously by providing internet from 22 million people to 772 million people in the last decade, the report said, adding that China’s internet availability rate has reached 55.8 percent, exceeding the world average by 4.1 percentage point.

According to the report, in India, internet penetration in the last ten years has jumped from five million to 462 million by 2017. It is expected to grow up to 500 million this year. BSS

In the last decade internet penetration in Indonesia has grown from 2 million to 143 million. It is followed by Japan with 118 million. Japan although had been far ahead of other countries ten years back with the internet penetration at 47 million in the year 2000.

In the Philippines and Vietnam, 67 million and 64 million people respectively have access to the internet. Thailand has made internet available to 57 million people in the last ten years.

South Korea was second to Japan in the year 2000 with internet availability to 19 million people. The internet has now reached 47 million people by last year end.

Pakistan has improved considerably from providing access to 0.13 million people a decade ago to 44 million by the end of last year. Malaysia, Nepal and Myanmar have made internet available to 25 million, 18 million and 16 million people respectively by 2017.

By the end of last year 8 million people in Cambodia had access to the internet followed by Sri Lanka and Singapore with internet availability to 6 million and 4 million people respectively. Laos and Mongolia have provided internet availability to 2 million people. The smaller countries like Brunei and Bhutan have made internet available to more than 400 thousand and 300 thousand people respectively.

Even with these impressive numbers, the level of connectivity still has to improve considerably especially in South Asia. There are many challenges in terms of infrastructure, affordable devices, data plans and digital literacy that need to be overcome.