Let's digital. That's the message in the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications 1999 White Paper on Communications in Japan. The annual survey, released earlier this month, reveals a nation poised for the millennium, its finger firmly on the mouse, clicking its way into the 21st century
The report highlights the fact that 17 million Japanese, nearly 13.4 percent of the population, use the Internet. Japanese domains recorded a 240 percent increase (in gigabytes) in their capacity last year. Only five years after commercial Internet services opened shop in Japan, more than 10 percent of households are logging on; it took 13 years for PCs and 76 years for telephones to reach the same penetration level.
More people online means more e-commerce. Sure enough, MPT estimates that the volume of Internet-related commerce hit 2.598 trillion yen in 1998, more than double the previous year. ISPs marked a 160 percent increase in revenues, and Net-related business revenue climbed 40 percent.