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Indians get net savvy
si Team
Thursday, October 5, 2006
Internet growth in India is often a mixed bag of achievements and failures. At one hand there is an increasing number of people getting hooked to Internet and on the other, there are people who have not benefited from Internet even though it holds the promise to make living better.

A September 2006 report said 37 million Indians are using the Internet now as opposed to just 35 million in March 2006. The study, jointly conducted by Internet and Mobile Association of India and IMRB, says India has 25.1 million active Internet users compared to 21 million in March 2006.

The survey was done early this year amongst 16,500 households, covering 65,000 respondents across 26 major metros and small towns in India, with additional coverage of 10,000 business and 250 cyber cafe owners. The survey did not include rural areas.

The survey found out that youths are the main Internet users in India. Besides, college students and those below the age of 35 are the biggest segment on the Internet.

As prices of computers have reduced considerably and with the prices of broadband Internet also reducing with increased competition, small towns and smaller metros are also increasingly embracing the Internet, the study says. Smaller cities and towns have shown a whopping 142 percent year-on-year growth and now account for 25 percent of all Internet users.

Predicting the future develop-ment, IMRB Technology Group Vice President and country manager Mohan Krishnan says, “The next round of growth will be driven by new and innovative applications like P2P, video-on-demand and online gaming. The old favorites such as e-mail and chat will drive first time users to the medium.”

The study says India is likely to have 40 million Internet users by March 2007.
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