Number of Indian people using the Internet is growing by the minute

Even though in India, less than 50 per cent of the people use the Internet, this number is expected to grow significantly. In fact it has already increased 30 per cent compared to 2007. The broadband penetration has continued to remain low at 5 million against the country’s population of over 1.2 billion. 

Certainly, it matters for what reason Indian consumers use Internet. Mostly, it is used for e-mailing. It is noted that 91 per cent of the people in India use the Net primarily for what, while over 80 per cent use it as a social media platform. Job search, information search and instant messaging and chat account for 72, 49 and 70 per cent respectively. While the number of Net users on the rise and they are dependent on whatever Internet can offer, cyber laws are not in place and cyber security awareness among users is pathetic. It is the opinion of the experts. And among them is Ms Srishti Sofat, Country Manager, InfoSpace. She shared her thoughts on Net penetration and its status in India. She pointed that the company witnessed a 23 per cent increase in Internet users as at the end of October and 26 per cent increase in domain registrations during the first quarter of 2008 compared with the corresponding quarter of the earlier year. 

Other professional Mr Diptarup Chakraborti, Principal Research Analyst, Gartner, marked other interesting detail of Internet usage in India. While Net penetration continued to rise in the country, the number of users accessing the Net from cyber cafes (in urban areas) tended to slip in the last couple of months. It means that users sense Net access at cyber café to be uneconomical and insistence of identity proof at browsing centres. Also he assured that Indian users are to face high level of piracy with instances of even the operating system being pirated and security concerns. However, present situation shows that the penetration of the Net has progressed from an experiment to utility and is expected to eventually entwine in the fabric of society. 

And the Net is used extensively to do job search, ticketing – travel and entertainment, online trading, banking, information search and online gaming, apart from chats and e-mails. Moreover, an IAMAI’s Report on Online Banking has estimated the online banking service users at 16 million by 2008.