Riding Asia's digital tiger

Asia's emerging markets are poised for explosive digital growth. The region's two largest economies -- China and India -- already boast some 500 million Internet users, and the authors forecast nearly 700 million more will be added by 2015. To better understand the consumers, growth prospects, and problems, they surveyed more than 13,000 individuals across China, India, and Malaysia. Of the three markets they researched, Malaysia is the most advanced. While the country has only around 15 million-plus Internet users, that's close to 55% of the total population, and mobile Internet penetration is close to 30% of it. China leads the world in sheer numbers of Internet users -- more than 420 million people, or close to 30% of the population. With only 7% of the population connected (81 million users), India is Asia's digital sleeper. Yet they believe that it's poised to become a truly mobile-Internet society as new users leapfrog PCs altogether.