According to new research by the Boston Consulting Group, the Internet economy among G-20 nations is expected to nearly double by 2016, reaching an estimated $4.2 trillion (up from $2.3 trillion in 2010). In addition to that astounding figure is the projection that nearly half of the planet's population will be connected to the Internet — with 3 billion users in 2016, up from 1.9 billion in 2010.
“No company or country can afford to ignore this development. Every business needs to go digital,” Boston Consulting partner David Dean said in a statement today. “The ‘new’ Internet is no longer largely Western, accessed from your PC. It is now global, ubiquitous, and participatory.”
They also say that by 2016, nearly 70 percent of Internet users in G-20 nations will be from emerging markets, up from just 56 percent in 2010. The group also estimates that China will have about 800 million Internet users by then — “about the same number as France, Germany, India, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. combined,” it wrote in a news release today.
The takeaway is that business owners are going to have to start paying closer attention to the Internet. The takeaway for everyone else is that a massive global economy cannot afford to have the world's governments meddling and mucking about to enrich the needs of the few - like rights holders bribing lawmakers to create laws that mess with internet traffic and commerce. Free speech is the best thing for a free global marketplace...
Source: VentureBeat. Image Credit: Shutterstock
