The “World” In World Wide Web
Internet marketing is booming in the U.S., but not only there. Even the (for a while, relatively) weak Japanese economy is improving with Internet marketing as both cause and beneficiary.
Japan has the third largest Internet population in the world. (Second, if you discount the heavily censored Chinese market.) Estimates put the number in the neighborhood of 73 million individuals.
Not only numerous, the Japanese are highly industrialized, strong on financial services and technology oriented. Most consumer electronics products see their introduction there prior to the rest of the world. (And the Japanese consumers often pay a significant premium for such items.)
Brazil is coming on strong as well. With a working population over 123 million, 14 million of whom use the Internet regularly, Brazil is the largest Internet market in Latin America. It grew by over 6.5% from February 2006 to March 2006 alone.
Canada, for a long period a relatively quiet Internet marketing arena, is now also seeing significant growth.
“According to the latest figures from Statistics Canada, Canadian online sales recorded their fourth consecutive year of strong double-digit growth in 2005. Combined private and public sector online sales increased by 38.4% compared with 2004, to reach a total of CAD39.2 billion (US$32.4 billion).” (eMarketer)
At a time when worldwide PC shipments are up over 13%, and economic news around the world in general is mostly healthy, this trend is likely to continue.
It may be time to learn another language.