From Business Week:
Some 11 million PCs in over 110,000 Internet caf√©s. If you’re Xu (Ian) Yang and your job is to sell Chinese on using computers with Intel chips, those numbers will surely grab your attention. In late 2003, Yang, the Beijing co-general manager of Asia-Pacific for Intel Corp. (INTC), was in the northeastern city of Harbin to speak to university students. It was a typically frigid northern day, and since Yang had a little time to spare, a staffer suggested they warm up in an Internet caf√©.
While China’s Net caf√©s had a reputation as seedy firetraps, this one impressed the Intel team. It was filled with students playing online games, watching movies, and instant messaging their friends. “There had to be 500 people there on three floors,” recalls Yang. If there were so many PCs in just one caf√©, what sort of opportunity might exist nationwide? “I said to the guys: ‘Come up with data on this,”‘ says Yang. [Full text]
