More micro enterprises going online...

A rough check on participants of a local exposition of micro enterprises in Penang in 2004 showed that about only 10% of the companies or micropreneurs have listed an email address as one of their contact methods. This year, in 2007, more than 50% of these micro enterprises are listed with respective email address, specifically for the companies that are going to participate at an upcoming Gerak Usahawan Pulau Pinang 2007 exhibition that's to be held at Dewan Milenium, Kepala Batas on 4 & 5 AUG 2007.

That's more than five-fold of growth in just three years - a good sign that micro enterprises are getting more ready for IT to spice up their business marketing and operation. Of course this positive growth reflects present Internet usage penetration reaching 50% of the population and a decent growth in the number of Internet usage during the 27-month (Jan 2005-Mar 2007) period: 13.4 to 13.9-million dialup users and 500,000+ to 990,000+ broadband users -- according to Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC). Or according to Aneki.com, Malaysia is listed as top 16th in the world in terms of the number of Internet users, ahead of its neighbors including Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. According to Aneki which bases its data on figures provided by US CIA, Malaysia has experienced 265% in growth in terms of number of Internet users between 2000 and 2007 -- Back in 2000, based on Nielsen Netratings or Computer Industry Almanac data which InternetWorldStats relied on for its world-ranking figures, Malaysia did not even make it in the top-20 lists for Internet users, penetration, and broadband subscribers, but now we obviously are (at no less than 1% of world's usage)!

Or simply because micro entrepreneurs in Penang are getting more and more exposed to IT over several related events like Penang i-Land (2004), Launching of Penang MSC-status cyber city and Global Technopreneur Forum (2005), Penang Technopreneur Blueprint (2006) and an upcoming MSC-related event in Penang in October 2007.

Still, only about 10% of these micro enterprises have their own domain name or website to showcase their products and services. And a quick validation on the email addresses supplied by these micropreneurs shows that about 10% of them are invalid -- either honest mistakes or simply means that they don't really use those email accounts anyway.

It's time for us to embark on a mission to advocate more use of Internet and e-commerce among the micro enterprises in Malaysia... starting with Gerak Usahawan Pulau Pinang -- we'll be at Booth #107. FREE Web.com/WAP.mobi Development service worth RM600+! (LIMITED TO 20 PATRONS -- Contact us for details). BONUS: FREE domain name worth RM28+ with paid hosting. See you there!