Investors are turning to a high-speed Internet connection service in droves, providing a major lift to the online stock trading phenomena.
The service, which is based on a digital subscriber line, uses telephone lines to let Web users surf at speeds more than 10 times faster than conventional services provided by NTT's integrated services digital network technology.
According to a government survey, there were 112,182 DSL subscribers in Japan at the end of April, or 11.54 times the 9,723 customers registered at the end of 2000.
Matsui Securities Co. alone received some 980,000 buy and sell orders online last month, up 69.1 percent from December. In value, the orders totaled 540 billion yen, up 94.1 percent.
Online trading by far outpaced the higher turnover on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's first section during the period, rising 17.3 percent from 18.3 trillion yen to 30.8 trillion yen.
In South Korea, online trading by individuals now accounts for over 70 percent of total transactions. The country's Internet population stands at 27 million, more than half of the total population of 47 million.
Some 13 million use DSL.
For Japan's population of 120 million to catch up with South Korea, the number of Internet users must rise from 27 million to 51 million, and 13 million of them must subscribe to DSL.