HONG KONG (AFP) -- Asia‘s technology giants paid tribute to Steve Jobs on Thursday, with Sony and Samsung hailing the late Apple co-founder as the leading light of the digital age and an inspirational entrepreneur.

Fans in tech-savvy Japan and Singapore held silent prayers at Apple stores while in China, home to the world’s largest Internet population, millions posted messages online to mark what one called the “fall of a giant star”.

“The digital age has lost its leading light, but Steve‘s innovation and creativity will inspire dreamers and thinkers for generations,” Sony president and chief executive Howard Stringer said in brief statement.

Taiwan’s Foxconn, a major Apple supplier, hailed Jobs as a visionary who helped make technology “beautiful”, after the technician-turned-tech guru died of cancer aged 56.

“The global electronics industry is all the better for the many contributions he made to ensuring that technology is understandable, beautiful, and, most importantly, accessible to people from all walks of life,” it said.

“The world has lost a true hero and I have lost a friend,” added Foxconn founder Terry Gou.

South Korea‘s biggest firm, Samsung Electronics, embroiled in worldwide legal disputes with Apple over patents, called Jobs a “great entrepreneur” with an innovative spirit who revolutionized the information technology industry.

“His innovative spirit and remarkable accomplishments will forever be remembered by people around the world,” said chief executive officer Choi Gee-sung.

The country has the world’s fastest Internet speeds and fans flooded social network sites in mourning.

“Among all the electronic products I‘ve bought, the only ones that made my heart race with joy were the ones made by you, Steve Jobs,” said one user.

Web users in China, where diehard fans queue for days to get their hands on Apple’s latest products, posted nearly 35 million online tributes.

“He was a great man. He needs to be remembered,” one man, who declined to give his name, told AFP at the crowded Apple store in Shanghai as he presented a bouquet of white lilies in memory of the father of the iPhone and iPad.

A special tribute page set up by portal Sina carried unstinting praise from leading industry figures and Internet users alike.

“Boss Jobs, have a good journey. Your products changed the world. Your thinking influenced a generation,” said Kai-fu Lee, founder of technology incubator Innovation Works and former president of Google China.

Zhang Yaqin, chairman of Microsoft‘s Asia-Pacific Research and Development Group said: “The giant star of a generation has fallen.”

On Sina Weibo, the country’s most popular micro blogging service, one pledged to support the US tech firm, despite Jobs‘ death.

“Apple makes my life more colourful,” wrote Zhao Rongliang.

In Hong Kong, emotional Apple fans laid a sunflower and a white rose at the door of the city’s new Apple Store, which opened less than two weeks ago in an upmarket mall overlooking the harbour.

“Apple Steve Jobs‘ spirit live forever,” wrote Charanis Chiu, 58, in a note attached to his sunflower tribute.

“He’s like a godfather in the IT industry. He definitely will be missed,”

said one customer, Dong Nan, 28, a civil servant from China‘s Anhui province.

After leaving an authorized Apple retailer in Singapore, hair stylist Ramanathan Rathamuthu, 49, said no-one could beat Jobs for creativity and innovation.

“He’s the mind of the whole Apple. The next developer who comes up, I‘m not sure if he has the knowledge to create products that can inspire everyone.”

Staff at the store in the city state’s upscale Orchard Road shopping area observed a minute of silence before they opened.

“The legacy he left behind is undeniable... He totally changed and revolutionized home computing and made it accessible to all,” employee Muzafar Mohammed Yusof, 39, told AFP.

At Apple‘s thronged store in Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district, staff also held a silent prayer before opening their doors.

“Jobs really is Apple,” 21-year-old student Mami Tachiguchi said. “So many people are talking about it on Twitter.”

Nishant Shah, director of research at the Center for Internet and Society in India‘s tech capital Bangalore, said no-one had had as great an impact on modern technology as Jobs.

“He made computing into a lifestyle choice. Owning something like a Mac became a statement of a particular ideology and lifestyle. We never had somebody like that in computing,” Shah told AFP.

“He was somebody who knew what people wanted and was always right.”