MSN's Asian viewers surge
2000-07-25

Category Usage Statistics Internet Nations Japan Singapore U.S. Malaysia States Washington County King County Metropolitan Seattle Company Microsoft

Seattle - Microsoft's Asian network of MSN Websites attracted over 16 million unique users in June, bolstering the company's claim that it has the most-visited Web site worldwide, CBS.MarketWatch reported.

Microsoft, whose MSN network in Asia covers seven countries and five languages, said that 201 million unique users visited MSN, making it the top Web site worldwide for that month.

In Asia, unique user growth rose over 100 percent and page views rose nearly 75 percent since June 1999. That increase came mostly from Japan, where monthly unique users reached 8 million, said company officials in Hong Kong.

MSN's network in Asia comprises local versions of its flagship U.S. Web site in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, Malaysia, Japan and India. As in the U.S., the Asian versions have free Web-based email, instant messaging, search capabilities and links to content such as news, travel, personal finance and other information.

To boost growth in the region, MSN said it would launch a more accurate, localized MSN search engine and Chinese and Korean language versions of Hotmail, its free email service.

Though MSN has Microsoft's clout, it still faces tough competition in Asia. In addition to popular local language portals in each market, it also needs to play catch-up with Yahoo (YHOO: news, msgs), which as the region's first mover is one of the most widely recognized consumer brand names in Japan and Korea, said Salomon Smith Barney in a recent report.