Online ad market in Asia to grow by nine times in three years

The Asian on-line ads market will grow by nine times in the coming three years but its total value will be far below that of the American market, a research agency predicted Monday. AdXplorer, a consulting firm for Internet ads active in Hong Kong and Singapore, estimated that on-line ad expenses would grow more than 900 percent by 2003 and be worth $810 million. The growth rate of the U.S. market in the next three years will be only one third of that of the Asian market. Nonetheless, the market size would be close to $5 billion, it said.

The results are based on a survey conducted by AdXplorer on 100 people randomly chosen from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. According to the polling agency, Asian people are not especially enthusiastic about on-line transactions. It said that about 50 surveyed people showed a strong antipathy toward e-commerce for reasons of security and privacy.