The Internet Economy

The Boston Consulting Group, in its latest report, has projected that the Internet Economy would double by 2016 from an estimated worth of $2.3 trillion in 2010 to $4.2 trillion by 2016.

The huge leap is largely due to the future accessibility of half of the world's population to the Internet by 2016.

At hindsight, the trend is highly credible as far as the Philippine setting is concerned. More and more Filipino citizens can now afford low-cost PCs and laptops, and get hook to wired or wireless Internet connection provided by Smart, PLDT, Globe, Sun, Skycable, Wi-tribe, Bayantel, etc. Plus the fact that smartphones today can easily be configured to make it a surfing gadget with which one can chat, email, and use social networking websites.

Also, in the towns, telecommunication companies have penetrated their Internet services through the introduction of either 3G or 4G technology. Just buy a USB-connected gadget and you will be connected globally even when you are in a remote barrio.

The trend should awaken government officials. The botched broadband deal entered by the Arroyo administration was actually a good plan sans the corruption element of it. Had it been perfected, the project would have improved Filipinos' digital inter-connectivity.

Any government today that would neglect the development of online technologies will surely be left behind in the race of world economic ranking.

It is high time that our agenda on national progress should put technology a top priority as a matter of survival in global economic race.

The salient features of Boston Consulting Group's report are summarized below (in direct quote):

- From a Luxury to an Ordinary Good. Twenty years ago, at the Internet's commercial birth, its use was restricted to the relatively wealthy. Today it is almost everywhere, with half the G-20's population expected to use the Internet by 2016.

- From Developed to Emerging Markets. By 2016, nearly 70 percent of the Internet users in the G-20 will be from emerging markets, up from 56 percent in 2010. China will have nearly 800 million Internet users -- about the same number as France, Germany, India, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. combined. The contribution of emerging markets to the G-20's Internet economy will grow from less than one-quarter in 2010 to more than one-third in 2016.

- From PC to Mobile. By 2016, mobile devices -- increasingly, smart phones -- will account for about 80 percent of all broadband connections in the G-20 nations.

- From Passive to Participatory. Social media are changing global communication patterns. Countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, and Mexico are going straight to social, with more than 90 percent of Internet users engaged in social media. In these countries, social media are used more extensively than in developed markets in the creation and sharing of content

Atty. Aleck T. Lim , TBS