Internet in India 2014 report: India to over take United States by the end of this year

India will over-take United States as the second-largest market in the world by December 2014.

Published: November 20, 2014 4:14 PM IST

By Aadil Ikram Zaki Iqbal

Internet in India 2014 report: India to over take United States by the end of this year

India will over-take United States as the second-largest market in the world by December 2014. According to the ‘Internet in India 2014’ report published by Internet and Mobile Association of India and IMRB International in a massive growth of 32 per cent, the number of internet users in India will reach to 302 million by the end of this year,

According to the report, India has registered immense growth in terms of internet users. Despite the fact that internet in India took more than a decade to move from 10 million to 100 million users and three years from 100 to 200 million users. And within a year the number of internet users in India has reached from 200 to 300 million.

India has 177 million internet users in rural India which is 29 per cent more than last year. While in urban areas the number of internet users registered 39 per cent growth since last year and rose to 101 million, according to the data till October 2014. The report also predicts that rural India will have 190 million internet users while urban area will have 112 million internet users by the end of year 2015. However, with 278 million internet users India is on third place following America (279 million) and China (600 million). But by the end of this year, India will grab the second spot, the reports suggest.

The report also puts light on the primary reasons of internet usage in rural and urban India. As per the report, in rural India entertainment is the primary cause for usage, then communication and social networking. While in urban India, users are mainly dependent on internet for search followed by communication and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter etc.

What shocking is that Indians in both urban and rural areas are not using the web for social networking. It should be noted that the number of internet users in India is increasing despite the fact that due to infrastructural issues and other barriers only a minority section of people actually are online.

The rural population which consists of almost 45% of the potential users have  little or no access to electricity, and the fact that the deployment of 3G is in its blooming stage, a major chunk of the population miss out on internet use. Then too rural areas are showing more growth than urban areas. Well, India is still far behind of China which has 600 million internet users.

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