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News >> Technology >>
India fourth largest Internet user
By agencies
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Thursday, 12 January 2006, 20:30 IST
NEW DELHI: The number of Internet users surpassed one billion in 2005 — up from only 45 million in 1995 and 420 million in 2000, with India accounting for 50.6 million. While the U.S. continues to lead with nearly 200 million Internet users at the end of 2005, China and India are now in second and fourth place among Internet users.
The two billion Internet users milestone is expected to be touched by 2011, a U.S.-based research and consulting firm has predicted. According to Dr Egil Juliussen of eTforecasts, “Much of current and future Internet user growth is coming from populous countries such as China, India, Brazil, Russia and Indonesia.” Rapidly increasing Internet adoption in Asia's highly populous developing nations, notably China, India and Indonesia, has helped push the worldwide online population over one billion for the first time.
Juliussen said, “These countries will also see strong growth of wireless web usage, and for many new Internet users the cell phone will be their only Internet access device.” Internet user penetration is now in the 65 percent to 75 percent range for the leading countries and future growth is limited, the firm indicates.
While the number of people online continues to increase, the larger developing nations are seeing their percentage share of the worldwide Internet audience grow rapidly while the proportion of users in developed nations, like the U.S., falls.
According to eTForecast's data, the U.S. share of the global online population slid from 19.86 percent in 2004 to 18.3 percent last year, while China's share crept up from 10.68 percent to 11.1 percent. Another survey also observes that Indians are increasingly becoming net-savvy with the Internet users base registering a 54 percent growth, with 38.5 million people using the medium this year.
The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) stated that more and more people are using the Internet. Against 25 million users in 2004, 2005 has recorded 38.5 million users till November. Analysts say that Internet penetration has been facilitated by low rates for broadband connections, which enables the common man to overcome the first obstacle of accessing the Net.