INDIA SAW 71 MILLION NET USERS IN 2009

The increasing broadband penetration in the country has led to an exponential rise in the number of Internet users, said a combined study by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and marketing research firm IMRB. The joint report titled Internet in India said the number of people who 'claimed' to have used the Internet in 2009 stood at 71 million, the study added.

According to the study, 'claimed users' (those who said they had used the Internet in some form, such as for checking results online during the year) is an important category for understanding the future trends in active user base. However, the number of active Internet users rose to 52 million in September 2009 from 42 million in September 2008, registering a year on year- on- year growth of 23.8 per cent.

Active users are those who access the Internet at least once in a month. This surge in number has been primarily due to the increased number of users in the remote urban pockets (small metros and towns) and among lower socio-economic classes, it said. Internet usage has also gone up from 9.3 hours per week to 15.7 hours per week, a steep 68.8 per cent rise, the report said.

This can be attributed to innovative content delivery, better applications and its increased use for the purposes of entertainment, comprising downloading music or videos, socialising through social networking sites and expressing one's own opinions and views through micro-blogging and user-generated content sites, it added.

"We are happy to note that while people in the smaller towns are taking to Internet seriously, for a deeper engagement we need to provide them the best innovations in the language of their choice, at an access cost that does not pinch and through a device that they have. Only then this engagement is going to be sustainable," IAMAI noted.