China leads Asia in time spent surfing

When contacted today, NetValue country manager (Singapore) Jack Loo said online users in China spent 55 percent of their time surfing Web sites (see Table below). They spent 9.6 days on average per user in March, he added.

Internet users in Korea and Taiwan spent 43 percent of their time surfing the Web. This was trailed by Hong Kong with 41 percent and Singapore with 40 percent.

The findings were based on NetValue's report titled Asian Regional Snapshot, which provided a consolidated overview of Internet behavior across China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.

When contacted, a spokesperson for NetValue said the results were based on a total panel of 21,500 home Internet surfers in the five countries.

In a statement, NetValue said these users were connected to the Internet (Web and non-Web activities) for a total of 284,830 days, or an average of 12.2 days per Internet user. Web activities refer to surfing Web sites while non-Web activities include email, instant messaging, chat and audio and video streaming.

"About 52.1 percent of the time was spent on non-Web protocols," the company said in the statement.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong was tops in instant messaging in March, with users spending 32 percent of their time on the activity. This was followed by Singapore with 22 percent, and China, Korea and Taiwan with 11 percent each.

In email, Taiwan was the leader with 28 percent, followed by China (22 percent), Singapore (19 percent), Hong Kong (9 percent) and Korea (3 percent).

"Internet users in Asia Pacific use the computer more for communication purposes than in the US, where people use it more for searching information and transactional purposes," Loo explained, without revealing specifics.

Korean users spent most of their time with audio-video streaming and gaming protocols. "About 61 percent of the households (in Korea) connected to the Internet are broadband enabled…So if you have broadband connection, then streaming and online games become easier to access, and the audio-video experience also becomes much more entertaining," NetValue Ltd vice president of sales and marketing Clayton Fitts said in the statement.

Singapore Internet users spent 8 percent of their time in chat rooms, making them the leaders in this activity. This could be because chat rooms are "a good way for people to make friends easily (rather) than to meet up in person", Loo observed.

Web Instant messaging Mail File transfers Audio video News Chat Games China 55% 11% 22% 6% 2% 1% 1% 2% Hong Kong 41% 32% 9% 6% 4% 4% 1% 2% Korea 43% 11% 3% 6% 18% 0% 2% 17% Singapore 40% 22% 19% 3% 6% 1% 8% 1% Taiwan 43% 11% 28% 7% 3% 1% 1% 6% Base : All Internet Users in China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore & Taiwan, March 2001 Source: NetValue