Some Numbers From India Online 2007 Survey
Update: More data in the release here.
Updated with details from agencyfaqs
The Economic Times has some data from a Juxtconsult “India Online 2007” survey, according to which:
– There are approximately 30 30.82 million Internet users, 83 percent of these log on at least once a month. 20 million log on daily.
– 50 percent (approx) of respondents are from Tier II and III cities.
– 56 percent of total respondents are from Socio-Economic Class (SEC) A and SEC B, down from 56 percent from India Online 2006
– 76 percent respondents are in the 19-35 age group, down up from 67 percent
– 17 percent are from an IT background, down from 21 percent
– 47 percent respondents access the Internet from cyber cafes, 78 percent from the workplace
– 34 percent use their credit card online
– 59 percent browse in English, up from 41 percent
A few things to bear in mind: The methodology – the offline part of the survey had 10,000 responses from 31 cities. Government data was used for estimation. The online part of the survey covered over 15,000 14,200 Internet users. Also, Juxtconsult is an Indicus Analytics and Webchutney joint venture. Both these companies have online businesses.
So how many Internet users are there in India? I’m more likely to believe the government estimates of 3.5 million broadband connections, than figures of 30 million Internet users…or for that matter 50 million “ever” Internet users that everyone in every conference uses to justify why their investment/venture. If you buy the hype, then it’s a bubble all right.
There are and will be more internet users on the mobile than there are on the traditional internet. most users are from tier 2 & 3 cities.
broadband in india is lite broadband so a slightly better narrow band experience.
Yet we hear more about investments in new internet businesses than mobile businesses. internet businesses dont have significant mobile plays and no regionalisation and local language content.
Maybe if the PEs looked at this there would be some difference.
from the 20M online everyday, how many beyond email?
IMRB report incidentally shows numbers that are half these: 11M online everyday, with 3M beyond email
Mobstir: Whatever one might say about internet on the mobile – connectivity aside, there are serious issues regarding usability, both in the portal design and handset design. there'll have to be a major shift is the design. I dont think it can be about making a website more usable on the mobile, but a fundamental change in the way people access content. which is why I'm more bullish on mobile apps for accessing content than a browser. also, somehow I dont think we'll ever have the freedom on the mobile, of the kind that we enjoy on the internet. I can't imagine typing such a long comment on the mobile. :P
The other thing is – it will have to be something of a voice based system if you want to involve the masses…because not all can read and write…but I guess that's only going to be considered after those who can read and write are targeted.
Hi Nikhil, since you have engaged me in a discussion, here goes….
If we break up the internet usage into two parts, communication and all other business, you will be surprised at how your key strokes are distributed. communication probably takes 80% or more and the rest just 20%. This is also the reason why your upload data usage is a small fraction of your download usage.
Mobile is a communication device and the extremely cheap voice call and sms probably already makes it competitive to email…and then add the value of immediacy.
So except communication, you and i agree that both devices are for accessing content, once you and i have done our emailing which takes probably 20 – 30% of our internet time, the rest is devoted to accessing content.
Literacy is not equal to english speaking people. If there are 30 million people on the internet (and mostly male and young) and if the represent 50% of total people like themselves, there isnt much further to go here…I dont believe more than 5-7% of india is english language speaking and we already have 50% of them on the net…so where does the net go from here?
The mobile side too the same challenge exists, going lower in the pyramid causing more audio visual navigation needs as well as regional content and local languages.
lots of steam and work left to do….however, the sheer numbers for all of this are going to be higher on the mobile than the net…atleast for the next 3 years.
I saw an announcement on exchange4media that oneindia.mobi has been launched with 4 south indian languages along with English. This is a big step for accessing content on the mobile in Tier II and Tier III cities.
TRAI had adopted a mission for broadband growth in India in 2006. However in the absence of any fiscal or policy measures the growth did not happen the way it was predicted.
The mobile market in India has been growing at more than 8 million a month and has reached over 220 million users. Considering that many of the users enable GPRS or mail on the handsets, they would typically be counted as internet users.
It would be desirable that such data also comes forth from TRAI apart from just numbers of mobiles.
Broadband has many applications- VoIP, video and gaming. In fact the entire Web 2.0 ecosystem can be enabled by mobile delivered broadband.