Led by high-tech powerhouses Taiwan and South Korea, East Asian countries led the world in embracing digital home products, Parks Associates said June 22 during CommicAsia2006, the largest telecommunications trade fair in Asia.
Taiwan scored 8.7 points out of a possible 10 when it comes to using digital living products -- home networks, digital entertainment, consumer electronics, broadband and Internet services. And South Korea ranked second with a score of 8.4, followed by the U.S. at 8.1. Canada came next with an 8.0 score, according to results of the firm's 14-nation survey. Japan placed fifth with 7.9 score followed by Australia at 7.0.European countries occupied the next six spots and India ranked last with a score of 1.3, below China's 2.9.
"In Asia the consumers are driving the digital home deployment and not the service providers," said John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates."Asian consumers are much more open to using computers as an entertainment platform and that opens up another hub for distribution of content."
Barrett said that despite their low survey scores, both China and India are on a par with their neighbors in using digital home products. But it's important to remember that within those (countries) because they are such large markets, there is a very robust internal urban market that would compare very much with Taiwan and Korea if we separate it (out)," he said.
"The ability to identify the right technology relevant to the user... personalize it, make sure that it is easy and of course low-cost which is very important in Asia," said Eyal Adanya, a senior executive at Orca Interactive, a provider of hardware services.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2006
