237 Million Web Sites | India is expected to triple in the next five years | India to Have 237 Million Web Surfers in 2015
The number of Internet users in India is expected to triple in the next five years, according to a report from the Boston Consulting Group Wednesday but making money from them isn’t going to be easy.
Although PC penetration in India is low, at less than 5% of the population, and so is Internet use, with the country’s approximately 80 million Internet users averaging just about half an hour online a day, the report points to China’s growth and its 384 million surfers as a sign of how quickly this could change.
"The unexpectedly rapid pace of China’s online migration is a sharp reminder of how quickly the other BRICI markets are likely to evolve in terms of Internet penetration rates, the number of hours spent online per day and e-commerce adoption," said the report, which focused on the top emerging markets, Brazil, Russia, India, China and Indonesia.
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Many Indians will first go online from a phone, not from a computer.
A lot of the growth in India will come from users who first surf the Internet from their mobile phones, said Arvind Subramanian, managing director BCG Mumbai and one of the authors of the report, even though right now only 1% of mobile phone users are using the Internet.
"India is going to be different than what we’ve seen in mature markets but also in emerging markets. It’s going to be predominantly a mobile experience," said Mr. Subramanian, who says the Internet will transform itself in the process.
"The traditional Internet in its current form would be largely inaccessible even if it were to be available," he said. "The language and literacy barriers in the country—those are formidable."
Global sites that want to keep the edge they already have in India, compared to some other emerging markets, will have to Indianize more than they have so far.
"If you look at the Internet in Russia, China and Brazil, it is largely dominated by local sites, local content," said Mr. Subramanian. "In India and Indonesia, it’s the Googles, Facebooks, Orkut."
Going forward, "you will have language editions of all these global sites," he said. The hardware might have to change too, to voice-based devices or other gadgets that are more intuitive to use, he added.
Mr. Subramanian says Indians are likely to take to services that enhance personal productivity, such as job alerts or continuing education. About 73% of people who go online in India spend time job hunting, the research showed, a finding backed up by Google search trends in India which show job-related terms in the top 10 most days.
"The other thing that’s big there is matrimonial which is a very unique Indian thing," he said.
Most Chinese Internet users instead spend their time online instant messaging or listening to music and only 19% look for jobs. Russian and Brazilian web surfers use search engines a lot.
Making money from Indians on the Internet? That’s an even harder proposition.
"BRICI Internet users are much more likely to pay for online services than for content though Indian and Indonesian users are quite reluctant to pay at all, said the report.
Mr. Subramanian said that user fees, subscriptions or e-commerce aren’t going to be major sources of earnings for a while.
"A lot of it will come from other payers in the system using this as a way to reach a customer," he said.
Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/09/01/india-to-have-237-million-web-surfers-in-2015/?mod=e2e_yahoo_home_india
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