Allow me for a Che Det-ish posting here:

1. The world population currently stands at 6.77 billion, with 4 billion or 60% of them are from Asia.

2. The world total internet users currently stands at 1.6 billion, with 660 million or 40% of them are from Asia.

3. Asia's internet penetration rate currently stands at 17.4%, the second lowest region after Africa. The world's average is 23.8%.

4. It shows that the Asia's (internet) market is so huge, yet with so much potential and room for growth.

Continued from The State of eCommerce in Malaysia...

There are so many webstores, so many blogshops in Malaysia nowadays, if you notice. You might have got the feeling that most of them are like some sort of isolated islands. They have problem reaching out to the customers, and vice versa.

I have already mentioned that Google (or other search engine) is not a product aggregator, whereas Google Product Search is only available in US market.

How about online shopping directory, like Shoppy, emmagem etc? Technically speaking, these are only aggregating links not products, sort of an online version of yellow pages.

So, what product aggregator? Enter price comparison service.

Has e-commerce really taken off in Malaysia? Difficult to say, I think.

On one hand, so many has bought airline tickets via Air Asia. On another, how many of you have bought something else online? Ask the same question to those not so tech-savvy ones and you will roughly know, it does not reach the critical mass level yet.

However, we cannot deny that there is some sort of growth in the local market, and these factors are pivotal in fulfilling the potential.

How fast things change, Facebook seems to be no.1 in Malaysia already since I last posted 5 months ago (while Friendster was still leading).

Proof? Alexa. Facebook has moved up from no.8 to no.5, whereas Friendster has dropped from top 3 to no.7.

However, Friendster is still leading in terms of web searches. This is probably contributed by heavy searches such as "Friendster layouts" for teens who like to decorate their mini-hompy (pardon my Korean slang here).