(A little raining on the shore facing the exit of the Tokyo Bay to the Pacific Ocean)IT Service Market Size
It is a little surprise that the Information Technology-related market size is almost in proportion to the population size in North America and Japan (and a little bit of West Europe and Japan).
But, computer technologies and the Internet are based on English or West European languages (originally 8-bit code programming while a Japanese letter needs 16 bits). With such a great handicap, though as usual, Japan has amazingly taken rank with North America and West Europe. Yet, it is still incomplete to reach its goal.
North America (population - 330 million):
2008 - $329 billion
2012 - $396 billion
West Europe (population - 400 million ?):
2008 - $265 billion
2012 - $271 billion
JAPAN (population - 127 million):
2008 - $103 billion
2012 - $117 billion
Asia/Pacific Except Japan
2008 - $52 billion
2012 - $58 billion
Central/South Americas
2008 - $31 billion
2012 - $42 billion
Middle East/Africa
2008 - $17 billion
2012 - $22 billion
Central/East Africa
2008 - $12 billion
2012 - $15 billion
(Source: Gartner)http://www.nttdata.co.jp/corporate/ir/library/ar/index/pdf/ar09_J27.pdf
Among the three major players, North America, West Europe, and Japan, Japan is the only one-race/one-language/one-culture economy.
In North America and West Europe, synergy driven by different types of people has boosted deployment of IT technology with various types of value added.
Yet, Japan, relying solely on superiority of the Japanese culture and the Japanese language, has developed the IT industry in parallel with the European/American culture area.
In other words, only Japan has the effective and strong religious background to cope with the European/American Christianity area.
Today, no Muslims, no Hindus, no Taiwanese, no Koreans, and no Chinese think that they inherently lack ability, partly due to their religion, to develop, progress, and succeed in economy and industry like West Europe and North America, since Japan has done.
But, Japan now faces the last challenge, though actually a decades-long issue, as to how to excel in the cyber space or the IT-based virtual economy, in order to assure a dreamy 4% growth in the 21st century and permanently.