Albert Huang


	Should your business be on the internet? Yes! Here's a report from AsianConnections friend and mentor Mr. Albert Huang who attended COMDEX China '99 in Beijing. He has given us permission to reprint his e-mailed comments online.


	Organizers: Ministry of Information Industry, PRC. Ministry of Science & Technology, PRC. China Council for the Promotion of International Trade. ZIFF-DAVIS, a Softbank company. International Data Group (IDG).

	Sponsors: Sohu.com Hewlett Packard Beijing Telecom TechTrend D-Link Microsoft SyBase Cisco Systems Wanfang Data

Speakers:
John Thompson, Senior Vice President, IBM
Carol Bartz, Chairwomen/CEO, Autodesk
John Davies, Vice President, Intel
Brian Halla, President/CEO, National
   Semiconductor
Yang Yuan-qing, President, Legend Computer
   Group
K.P. To, Vice President, Motorola and
   President, Motorola China
Henry Lichstein, Vice President, Citicorp
Stephen McKay, Director, Andersen
   Consulting
Peter Schindler, Partner, Andersen Consulting,
   China.
Yimin Zhou, Vice President, UtStarcom, China
Chen XinXiang, Vice President, China
    Information Highway Corp.
Jimmy Wong, President, Infobank
Vivian Lau, Managing Director, Grey Interactive
Patrick Chan, Director, Boom Securities HK.

Internet development and E-commerce notes :

Radio took 38 years to reach 50 million people, TV 13 years and Cable TV 10 years. Internet adoption has taken just 4 years, making it the fastest growing media vehicle in history.

Currently, there are around 2 million sites and 320,000 homepages. (Source:IBM)

In 1998, were 20 million Internet users in Asia Pacific, among them 11.5 million in Japan and 2.1 million in China. However, by 2002, China is expected to surge to 15 million.

The amount of Internet users in China increases 10 times every 3 years since 1993.

On-line advertising business: USD $2 billion in 1998 and is projected to reach USD $15 billion by 2001, of which USD $600 million is expected to be in Asia. (Source:Grey)

By 2002, global E-Commerce is projected to be USD $1600 billion of which 58% will be in the Service sector, 14% in Software sector and 28% in the Hardware sector. In 1998, one of every 8 cars sold in USA is through Internet sales. (Source:IBM)

In the USA alone, 79 million adults use the internet on a regular basis and 11% of them are trading stock online. (Source:Boom)

In 1997, at least 10 Internet stock brokerages in Taiwan (estimated 50 to 60 at this moment, with over 50,000 customers using Smart Cards to trade.), 1 in Korea, 2 in Singapore and over 15 in Japan with USA brokerages moving in. In June this year, Hong Kong will build up the Super Internet for online brokerages. (Source:Boom)

Consumer market comparsion in 2001:

USA - 250 million customers
Eu - 300 million customers
China - 300 million customers (Source:Andersen)

Internet R/D resources in 1998:

USA - 996,817 professionals
EU - 1,318,408 professionals
China - 883,280 professionals (Source:Andersen)

China in 1998 has 320 million TV sets, 40 million VCD's, 1.1 million PC's and 2.1 million Internet users. IBM projects that China will be the trendsetter in Internet development in coming years. IBM also believes that we are moving from the "Computer Age" to the"Information Age" and using not only "Computers" but "Information Appliances". (Source:IBM)