Indonesian Internet Penetration Dificult to Meet MDGs Target

Ilustrasi (dok)

JAKARTA (IndoTelko) - Indonesian Internet Service Provider Association (APJII) is pessimistic that Indonesia would be able to meet the target set by the Millennium Development Goal`s (MDG'S) more than 50% internet penetration of the total population by the end of 2015.

"If you look at the trend of growth from year to year, and penetration in 2014, it seems difficult to meet the MDG's targets in Indonesia. Unless the government do something extraordinary to drive the internet penetration," said APJII Chairman, Samuel A. Pangerapan in Jakarta,  Yesterday.

The International Telecom Union (ITU) is targeting 50% of Indonesia's population have access to the internet by 2015. According to the Millennium Development Goal`s Internet users in Indonesia should reach 107 million in 2014, and 139 million users in 2015.

However, the target is still far away to be reached. Based on APJII survey in cooperation with the PusKaKom UI (University of Indonesia) mentions that Internet users in Indonesia in 2014 is recorded at 88.1 million or only penetrating 34.9%. In 2014 there were an additional 16.2 million Internet users as ita was recorded at 71.9 million users at the end of 2013.

Referring to the MDG'S, Indonesia is obligated to create an increase of approximately 15.1% this year. "My prediction for this year that our penetration is about 41% to 41%. The Internet penetration triggered by two factors, namely people's purchasing power and network availability," he said.

APJII Research
According to the research result, APJII and Puskakom not only involving the users and the data questionnaires of the Internet Service Provider (ISP) from APJII members. 2000 survey conducted on internet users in 42 cities both urban and rural Indonesia and provide demographic overview of Internet users, as well as their lifestyle behaviors to thoroughly describe the trend of Internet usage in Indonesia.

Judging from where they live, 78.5% of the total Internet users in Indonesia are living in Indonesia's western region. Internet users is dominated by those who live in urban Indonesia.

The age of Internet users in Indonesia is ranging from 18-25 years old, almost half of the total number of Internet users in Indonesia (49%). Female users leads more than male users. Female users 51% while Male is only 49%.  

This means that the internet user segment is those who are categorized in the millenial generation of digital natives or the generation born after 1980, when the Internet began to be used widely in the society.

The majority of internet users have and use the social networking content/app is 87.4%, second is those who use the internet
for searching things of their interest is at 68.7%, third is the instant messaging users at 59.9%, fourth is those who are looking for the latest news at 59.7%, and on the fifth rank is those who download and upload videos ata 27, 3%.

Online purchase as advertised lively and heavily on television, grew by 11% compared to the previous user at about 5%, but is still in the sixth position. It shows the level of trust on online transactions, has improved.

As many as 85% of internet users in the virtual world activities rely on cell phones, 32% are using laptop / netbook, 13% were accessing from tablets, and PCs by 14%. "We hope that in the future we can collaborate with the government in order to obtain a valid data and facilitate Indonesia to speak at the international level about this internet penetration," he concluded.(es)