With 400M Users, Indian Internet Population Will Beat US To Become 2nd Largest In The World!
As per a recent report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), India will have 402 million Internet users by the end of December, 2015, thereby overtaking US in total Internet users. With 600 million+ users, China is the #1 country in Internet population. In US, 380-400 million people use Internet as of, which is almost 85% of their population.
Right now, India has 375 million Internet users.
The most interesting aspect is the speed of growth which India witnessed in Internet usage: It took us 10 years to move from 10 million to 100 million users; 3 years to move from 100 million to 200 million; but only 1 year to move from 300 to 400 million users. No other country in the world has witnessed such staggering growth.
Last year in December, we had predicted that in smartphone usage, India will soon overtake US.
And, this is just the beginning, as we have only achieved 17-20% Internet penetration as of now. With Digital India campaign and smartphone usage explosion, we are well on course to become the largest Internet user base in the world.
Mobile internet is the driving force behind this explosive stats, as in Urban India, there are now 197 million mobile internet users, which is 67% more than last year. At the same time, rural India witnessed 99% surge in mobile internet users as there are now 80 million users.
Urban Females Overtake Males in Internet Usage
Compared to 71% male, only 29% of females in India are using the web; however, the growth is slowly catching up. Male internet users are growing at a rate of 50%, while female internet users are growing at a rate of 46%.
If we talk about urban areas, then female users have overtaken men in adopting this new medium. Compared to 28% growth of male users, females are growing at a rate of 39%.
Non-working women are leading the charge here, as the growth rate among this demography is 97%, compared to 36% in school going girls and 26% in college going girls.
The Next Big Market: Rural India
In rural India, 88% of Internet users are male, but the growth is intense, even overtaking urban India. New female users from rural areas are adapting Internet at a growth rate of 61%, while males are growing at a rate of 79%.
But the most exciting news for rural India growth is the demography: 75% of Internet users from rural India are in the age group of 18-30 years.
More Indians Open to Internet
IAMAI carried a survey across 35 cities, wherein they asked non-Internet users about their intensions of adapting the web. The good news is that, 11.4 million non-Internet users from these 35 cities have confessed that they will be using Internet in the next one year. And 7.6 million among them will be doing so from a mobile.
Yes, challenges do exist. As per AKAMAI, there are 1 billion people without Internet in India (which must have reduced now), and our broadband speed is 2nd slowest in Asia. But the changes are visible, and we are moving very fast – India will soon overtake Japan, UK and Germany to become World’s 3rd largest economy by 2050 and complimenting this economic growth, we are actually on the cusp of an explosive Internet penetration in India.
You can find the IAMAI report here.
