Only 18 million individuals in urban India were accessing the internet daily as of March 2011,and most of them spent less than two hours a day online. This is the finer picture that emerges from a close look into the internet study released on November 2 by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI),a body of internet companies and market research agency IMRB International. The study,conducted between January and March this year,said there were likely to be 112 million internet users in the country by September 2011 and this number is expected to go up to 121 million by December. These numbers,however,include anyone who may have accessed the internet once in his lifetime. Active users,or those who claim to have accessed the internet at least once a month,were 79 million in March 2011,were likely to have grown to 90 million in September,and are expected to go up to 97 million by December 2011. The study doesnt give a detailed analysis of the users universe in September and December. It is only up to March 2011 that a comparatively detailed picture has been provided in the study,and this reveals that a majority,or more than 82 per cent,of the active internet users lived in urban India. And of these,only 18 million accessed the internet everyday. Again,a majority of these users spent less than an hour to a little more than 2 hours a day on the internet,while young men and working women spent more than 16.5 hours a week online. Internet usage is still largely a metro-driven phenomenon, says Manu Agarwal,founder and CEO,naaptol.com,an online marketing platform. We get around 5 million visitors on our site every month and of these,around 3 million are unique visitors and a majority of these are from urban markets, he said. He said,however,that the number of users and usage among the existing users was consistently increasing. The CEO of another well-known e-commerce company said that their internal assessment was that the active users - those using the Net for purposes beyond accessing their emails or searching for some information was only around 50 million. He said his own site,which offers deals to consumers,gets around 3-5 million visitors in a month. A graphic in the IAMAI and IMRB study suggests there were only around 13 million individuals in urban markets who accessed internet four to six times a week. The study,interestingly,is based on extrapolations made on the National Readership Surveys data of 2006 whereas more contemporary figures are available. NRS data is based on our own internal research so we have a better understanding of it and it is also quite detailed, said Tarun Abhichandani,business director,IMRB. Asked if the numbers cited were hyperbolic and exaggerated,Abhichandani said: It is merely an assessment of the internet users but we would assume that we are on the mark because most internet companies agree with our numbers. IAMAIs members include Yahoo!,Google India,hungama.com,cleartrip.com,eBay India,flipkart.com,Infoedge India and rediff.com. Another executive who had worked on the report,however,said,The numbers are not the final word on the internet universe.they mostly reflect the larger trends of growth in the numbers of people accessing internet and their usage trends. Broadly,the study says of the 112 million internet users in September,90 million were likely to be active users (use at least a month),of whom 70 million were expected to be from the urban markets and 20 million from rural. It says accessing the internet through mobile phones was on the rise and of the 70 million active users from urban India,26.3 million used the internet through their mobile phones. This means a little more than 43 million individuals access the internet through their computers. The study says while older segments of users form a substantial chunk of users,it is school-going children who are driving the growth of the medium. Internet has a long way to go in this country. There are still basic logistical problems such as broadband speed,electricity in villages and lack of non-English platforms that are impeding its growth, said Abhichandani. In the urban markets,the study says,89 per cent users accessed the internet to check or send emails,71 per cent used it for social networking activities,64 per cent to search for education-related content,55 per cent for chatting and 49 per cent to access videos,music and images. The usage patter,however,differed between rural and urban users. The study says among those surveyed in seven states across the country,46 per cent used the internet to download music,videos and images,38 per cent to access their emails,29 per cent to get general information and 27 per cent to access education-related content.
