Ever thought about the percentage of internet users in India? Well, here’s what one ought to know. As per the latest study furnished by the leading news outlets in India, there happen to be around 451 million monthly active users of the World Wide Web in the world’s largest democracy and among the strongest economies in the world.
But, wait! There’s more to the above number. Of the 451 million active monthly internet users, 385 million are over the age of 12 while 66 million are in the age bracket of 5 years to 11 years. No wonder there’s a lot of sense in suggesting that India after is an active young country.
This age group of internet users happens to access the internet through the devices of family members. But if you thought that these are the only telling numbers then wait till you browse across the following piece of statistic:
An important percentage of internet users in India comprises, without a doubt, the male audience. And it is believed that the percentage of internet users in India that happens to be the male-dominated lot is around 67 percent.
Isn’t that an overwhelmingly dominant proportion of the active internet-using audience in the country? But what truly indicates that the real usage of the Internet has really hit the glass ceiling, shattered it and is now speaking in sky-rocketing terms is the fact that India now happens to be only behind China- the world’s leading country in terms of population- where it comes to the internet usage.
That told it’s exciting to uncover the names of cities that are dominating the usage of the internet across the nation. So it appears that both Delhi and Mumbai top the list with around 11.7 million and 11.2 million users, respectively.
In addition to the above, it’s also worthwhile to note the states where the female population happens to be leading regular and heavy internet usage. So on that count, states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Delhi have a high proportion of female internet users in the country.
While resuming the talk about the cities that are dominant in internet usage, it’s also worthwhile to mention that cities like Bangalore and Kolkata, followed by Chennai are leading the proportion of internet usage at 6.1 million users and 5.4 million users, respectively.
In an elaborate reportage on the latest numbers, it’s interesting to visit the findings furnished by one of the leading Indian media outlets- India Today:
While nine out of 10 users’ in urban areas access the Internet at least once a week, young users, aged between 16-29 years, are the most frequent users.
However, there is still a section of users, who use the Internet less than once a week. Approximately one in five rural Internet users belongs to this category.
In India, nearly one-third of users access the Internet for more than one hour in urban India, whereas in rural India, a similar proportion of users access the Internet for 15-30 minutes.
Surely, there’s been a tremendous rise in the overall Internet usage across the country but the same has been achieved owing to several factors, such as:
Better overall quality
Quality of Service
Affordability of Mobile Internet.
But that said, a development which will be worthwhile noting in the course of the future would be the quality and (also speed of) the growth of the Internet in the rural areas. This is down to the simplest of reasons that at the current moment, users in the rural areas use the Internet for no more than 15- 30 minutes of time in a day.
That Internet is no longer an element of luxury but an item of incessant usage on a daily basis suggests that a country that is increasingly dependent on this game-changer will further increase its daily dependence on it, in the times to come.