Mark Zuckerberg: Internet as an Economic Driver

Jakarta Globe, Vanesha Manuturi, Oct 13, 2014

Getting more of the population in Indonesia and businesses on the Internet is one
 of the biggest levers the government has [for growth] Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder
and CEO of Facebook said in Jakarta. (Reuters Photo/Beawiharta)

Jakarta. Boosting Internet connectivity in Indonesia is a key component of the country’s quest for higher economic growth, Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said during his visit to Jakarta on Monday.

“There’s a lot of studies and research that show businesses that are connected to the Internet grow twice as quickly as the ones that aren’t, in terms of using it to communicate with users,” Zuckerberg told reporters in Jakarta.

The entrepreneur, worth an estimated $32.2 billion, was in town to promote greater Internet connectivity in Indonesia through Internet.org, a global non-profit initiative run by Facebook and five other large global technology companies.

He also met with President-elect Joko Widodo on Monday to discuss the issue.

“Getting more of the population in Indonesia and businesses on the Internet is one of the biggest levers the government has to grow the economy and it’s one of the biggest ways for Facebook to help with the economy in Indonesia,” said Zuckerberg, famous for starting Facebook in 2004 in his college dorm room and building it into one of the biggest technology companies in the world.

In a press conference at the Four Seasons hotel, Zuckerberg said he wanted to connect the world to the Internet.

“We’ve invested in building satellites and solar-powered planes to beam down Internet, and that’s some of the challenges we plan to work with the government and the telecom operators,” he said.

“We can’t do any of this by ourselves. We have to work with not only government but also telecom providers, entrepreneurs [and] service providers. We’re a pretty small part of it. We’re just trying to help organize it,” he said.

Indonesia is important market for Facebook. According to a June 27 report from the Wall Street Journal’s tech and news analysis portal wsj.d, Facobook had some 69 million monthly active users in Indonesia.

The wsj.d quoted Anand Tilak, Facebook’s Indonesia country manager, who said that figure represented a 6 percent rise from the 65 million users six months ago.

No official country ranking has been provided by Facebook, but studies from research companies often state that Indonesia ranks fourth, after the United States, India and Brazil, for Facebook users.

On Monday, Facebook announced a cooperation with XL Axiata, the country’s second-biggest mobile carrier, as a local partner for its Internet.org initiative.

Jakarta-based XL Axiata has some 69.2 million subscribers, half of them being data service subscribers.

Under the partnership, Facebook and XL, along with telecommunication infrastructure provider Ericsson Indonesia, will encourage Indonesia’s smartphone application developers to optimize the data usage of their apps.

Optimizing the apps, according to Facebook’s Zuckerberg, will decrease data consumption. That in turn will allow more affordable data services for Indonesian Internet subscribers. Increasing bandwidth was not brought up.

Indonesia had 82 million Internet users, as of the end of May this year, according to data from the Communications and Information Technology Ministry.

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Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg, right, accompanied by President-Elect
Joko Widodo talks to journalists after their meeting in Jakarta, on Monday. (EPA
Photo/Adi Weda)