India is known as the biggest supplier of software and related manpower across the world. For many years, it’s been dominating the Internet industry and has leapfrogged many countries in various sections of the technology arena. A few days back we reported that by the end of 2011 India will become the second most populated country on Facebook and stands as the third position with the maximum number of internet users. Today IAMAI – Internet & Mobile Association of India – has reported that India has passed 100 million internet users landmark this year.
According to the report, India reached 112 million internet users in September 2011 and out of which, 88 million users are from urban cities compared to 24 million users from rural areas. When the current figures are compared with last year’s figure, we have noticed that the growth during this period was around 13 percent and it’s expected to reach 121 million by the end of 2011 – if the trend continues in similar fashion.
It’s an interesting fact to know that of these 112 million internet users, 90 million users use the internet at least once in a month, out of which 70 million are from urban areas whereas 20 million from rural areas. This directly indicates that despite the low number of association from rural areas, the percentage of users connecting to the internet at least in a month is high. It also highlights the craze of rural people towards the internet.
From the report, it’s been noticed that home, as an access point, has been increased rapidly compared to 2009, whereas the usage of cyber café for internet access has reduced this year. The main reason behind such shuffle is constant growing market competition of internet connectivity which has resulted in a subsidized price of bandwidth and data. While the other most important reason is an increment of cyber café crime that has distanced many users from such cafes. One should be surprised to know that near about 26.3 million users in urban cities are used to mobile internet. This figure is expected to improve in coming years due to explosive growth in the mobile industry where users are becoming more fascinated towards smartphone that has made ease for the users to connect to the internet.
It’s been reported earlier that the number of mobile broadband subscribers will reach 5 billion by 2016. Therefore, we can assume that in the coming years, countries like India which has a 1.21 billion population will generate how much internet traffic through mobile.
Youngsters are the future of a nation and for the internet technology. Internet usage by school going kids have seen a substantial rise and accounts for21 percent of the total usage compared to college going kids and Young men, with 27 percent, individually.
Internet craze in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities is more than Metro and such cities spike their dominance over the metros with an overall 60 percent of internet usage. The main reason for such huge gap is the curiosity about internet technology among people who find this insane for them.
Of the overall activities on the internet, the most popular activities that urban people like to do on the internet are Emails, Social Networking, Music, and Text Messaging. The best example of such things can be experienced inside a bus, train, or in an office compound, where one can see such activities performed by various people. This is also the main reason behind the explosive growth of Facebook as well as LinkedIn in India. At present India is on the third spot in terms of population on Facebook whereas on LinkedIn it’s in the second spot. The total number of users associated with Facebook from India is around 38.05 million compared to LinkedIn with 11.99 million.
On average, the total number of active internet users in India is more than 79 million, out of which, at least 87 percent of urban users use the internet once a week. This shows that near about 68.73 million urban users used the internet once a week.
If the trend continues in a similar fashion, definitely India will surpass U.S whose penetration rate is 78.2 percent compared to India’s 8.4 percent, and might surpass China too by 2020 in terms of the total number of internet users.
You can download the detailed report on the Internet in India can be downloaded from here.
