How many Internet users in Japan?
Believe it or not, there are now over 2,000 Internet service providers (ISPs) in Japan. These range from the very big (several have over 200,000 subscribers) to the very small (many local providers have less than 100 subscribers). So, how many Internet users in total? Let’s assume that 25% of these providers are already out of business or too small to matter. That leaves 1,500 ISPs. And let’s say that the top 10 providers have an average of 100,000 subscribers each, and the rest have an average of 500 subscribers. That gives a rough total of 1.75 million users. Then there are the large online services: NIFTY-Serve, Biglobe, MSN, and the newly launched AOL Japan. NIFTY-Serve and Biglobe list their memberships at 2 million and 1 million users, respectively, but the number of active Internet users among members is much smaller than that (maybe 10%). Considering inactive users and multiple accounts, I believe that there are around 2 million Internet end (home) users in Japan. The three pri
