Figure 1-2-2-1 Predicted Amount of ICT Investment around the World

Prepared based on Gartner's survey

years.

total population is as high as 78.1%.

## (2) ICT investment

### a. Status of the ICT investment around the world

The survey regarding the amount of ICT investment in the countries of the world shows that ICT investment is expected to grow in the developing countries, particularly in the Asia-Pacific regions, as well as the developed countries; the total amount of ICT investment around the world — 3.43 trillion dollars in 2011 — is expected to grow to 4.44 trillion dollars in 2016, at the estimated annual growth rate of 5.4%; as shown above, the amount of investment is predicted to grow. (refer to Figure 1-2-2-1)

### b. Investment in telecom-infrastructure

The trends in the investment in telecom-infrastructure also show the following: the rapid growth of telecom-infrastructure-investment centered around the low-income countries, particularly the investment in mobile-infrastructure, is distinctive. At the same time, examination of the trends in the private-fund investment in infrastructure projects worldwide reveals that the telecom investment in 2010 is 71.29 billion dollars, next in size to the investment in the energy sector.

### (3) ICT infrastructure development and dissemination a. Spread of mobile-phones

The rapid growth rate of mobile-phones, particularly in the developing countries, is distinctive; it shows that mobile-phones have been increasingly adopted as a critical social infrastructure. The world-mobile-phone user-population has grown from 720 million in 2000 to 2.19 billion in 2005 and 5.36 billion in 2010; particularly in the lower middle-income countries, the user-population ratio to the total population has grown from 3.4% in 2000 to 68.3% in 2010; even in low-income countries, it has rapidly grown from 0.4% in 2000 to 49.2% in 2010. In such situations, the world mobile-user population ratio to the

### b. Spread of Internet and broadband

Backed by the growth of economy and the telecom-infrastructure-investment, Internet has rapidly spread, although its growth rate is still lower than that of the mobile-phone; the world Internet-user population, only 390 million in 2000, has grown to 1.01 billion in 2005 and 2.03 billion in 2010; particularly the adoption rate of Internet in the upper-middle-income countries has grown from 4.2% in 2000 to 37.2% in 2010. As a result, Internet population-share of the middle-low income countries has reached 61.2%. As for broadband, while it has been spreading mainly in the high-income countries, it has spread to a significant extent in the upper-middle-income countries, showing growth in users from 1.5% in 2005 to 8.1% in 2010; furthermore, the broadband user-ratio in the middle/low-income countries has already reached 45.1%.

## (4) ICT utilization

### a. Spread of Social Networks

In middle-low income countries, along with the ICT infrastructure, social-networks — contents-service belonging to the upper layer of telecommunication industries — have spread at a rapid pace; for example, the ratio of Facebook account-users to Internet users shows that Facebook has spread rapidly, while the Internet-user ratio to the whole population still varies according to income levels.

### b. Adoption of Mobile-finance

Mobile-banking, one of the contents services provided by telecom industries, has been accepted in the middle-low income countries; the number of mobile-money-service-providers in the middle-low income countries, expanded from 19 as of January 2009 to 97 as of May 2011 and reached 124 in May 2012; the survey regarding