According to Institute for Information Industry data for 1998 on the number of Internet users in countries on the western Pacific Rim, the ROC is second only to Japan, and far ahead of other Chinese-speaking areas. In less than three years Taiwan's online population has grown to 2.2 million, compared with mainland China's one million plus and Hong Kong and Singapore's 500,000 each.
資策會一九九八年亞太國家網路使用人數的資料顯示，我國是該地區僅次於日本、網路使用人口第二高的國家；若是比較華文地區，台灣不到三年即成長到二百二十萬上網人口，大幅領先大陸的一百多萬，香港、新加坡的五十萬人口。