None of Indonesia's internet start-ups have emerged as dominant players. No internet portals and only two ISPs are publicly listed. Internet success stories tend to be companies with roots deep in the realm of traditional business. Many advertisements on Indonesian web pages, a traditional internet cash cow, provide links to foreign web pages, not indigenous vendors. Currently, consumers tend to use the internet for research or correspondence, not commerce.
Success stories do exist.
Astaga boasts 600,000 registered users and averages 21 million hits per month. Boleh Net, a popular e-mail site, recently became the first Indonesian company to rank in the top 1,000 websites in the world, according to an international internet ratings firm. The e-commerce sector in Indonesia is taking off only slowly, despite the rapid growth of portals and ISPs. One of the greatest hurdles to e-commerce is the limited number of Indonesians with credit cards. For those who have cards, many banks require the user to ask permission via a telephone call prior to each internet purchase because of rampant credit card fraud.