In a previous post I wrote about there being more Facebook users than Internet users in South East Asia. I also said that this was not the case in South Asia.
But I was wrong. I had relied on data from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It was only recently that I looked at the data for Nepal. Looks like Nepal lines up with the SE Asian countries on this issue.
At the Ford Foundation supported course we had a good discussion on this. But no explanation that we could all agree on.
4 Comments
Ujjwal Acharya
Thanks for writing about Nepal but your statement is, sadly, based on mismatched data and thus I find your statement invalid.
The number of Facebook users in Nepal that you have posted (4 million) is data of around August, 2014. The ITU data was probably recorded sometime in 2012 when Nepal’s internet penetration was ranged around 15 per cent.
According to Nepal Telecommunications Authority, in August, 2014, the total internet subscribers in Nepal was 8,946,569. (I understand there are some duplication due to multiple SIM subscription and there are multiple users to fixed connections to homes and office, but we can safely assume that number of Internet users was around 8 million).
If you compare data from around same time, its sensible; but if you compare data from August 2014 to data from 2012, it’s going to give you false comparison and a non-sensible finding such as “Nepal is only South Asian country where Facebook users outnumber Internet users”.
Rohan Samarajiva
Good point re data reporting points.
We were not reporting “subscribers” which is what is reported by NTA. We were reporting “users” which is a category that relies on demand-side data, or is calculated by applying a multiplier to the reported subscriber data. The ITU Internet user number does not differ from what the LIRNEasia method yields.
However, do you accept as fully accurate the NTA numbers? Seems to be based on a very broad definition.
Ujjwal Acharya
I don’t completely rely on data provided by NTA but I also don’t rely on appropriate data given by Facebook to a potential advertisers. FB data is more unreliable than data of NTA because simply you don’t know what definition they apply to their users.
Shreedeep Rayamajhi
The data provided by NTA is very arguable in regards of active users which is more or less subjected to subscription. Until and unless we have specific provision of life span or definition of active SIM, its very hard to determine the actual active user rate.
Insights from our first Book Club
The first installation of the book club was based on the book ‘Whole Numbers and half Truths: What data can and cannot tell us about modern India’ by Rukmini S. The book was an exploration of the data landscape in India by answering ten fundamental questions about how India operates – from what India ‘thinks, feels, and believes’ to how much money it earns and spends to how it is demography is changing.
Call for Expressions of Interest: Building digital tools to strengthen public discourse
LIRNEasia is pleased to issue a call for expressions of interest (EOIs) to build digital tools to strengthen pluralist, inclusive and fact-based public discourse in Sri Lanka. The detailed call for EOIs can be found here.
LIRNEasia introduces Dissect: a fact-checking tool empowered by AI
LIRNEasia recently unveiled “Dissect” – a cutting-edge web tool employing advanced artificial intelligence (AI) tailored for effective fact-checking. What sets this tool apart is its compatibility with Sinhala websites, and its accessibility to anyone from anywhere in the world, making fact-checking accessible to a wider audience.
Links
User Login
Themes
Social
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feed
Contact
12, Balcombe Place, Colombo 08
Sri Lanka
+94 (0)11 267 1160
+94 (0)11 267 5212
info [at] lirneasia [dot] net
Copyright © 2023 LIRNEasia
a regional ICT policy and regulation think tank active across the Asia Pacific