India, China propel internet audience growth in Asia-Pacific region

The Asia-Pacific internet audience grew 14 percent to 319 million visitors in April from 280 million visitors in the previous year, according to a report by ComScore. The strongest growth occurred in India, which surged 27 percent to more than 28 million internet users, followed by China which grew 14 percent to more than 102 million visitors.

Taiwan, Malaysia and New Zealand also achieved double-digit growth. More developed internet markets such as Japan and Singapore experienced modest gains of 3 percent and 4 percent, respectively. The study revealed that though each of the top ten global properties is based in the United States, each one sources the majority of its audience from outside the US. Half of the top twenty properties in the Asia-Pacific region are locally-owned entities. Google Sites and Yahoo! Sites combined to capture the majority of search share in the Asia-Pacific region, while five of the top ten search properties are regional engines, including China's Baidu.com and Korea's NHN.

Internet users in Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Australia spend the most time online in the region, but still spend less time than the worldwide average. Facebook.com is the leading social networking site worldwide and Friendster.com is the top social networking site in the Asia-Pacific region.