The Internet market in India — The big opportunity
With a population of 1.3 billion people and over 460 million internet users, India is the second largest online market. It is estimated that by 2021, there will be about 635.8 million internet users in India.
BUT only 26% of the Indian population had access to the internet in 2015. It’s true that this is a significant increase, considering the internet penetration rate was about 10% in 2011. And the trend is obvious, the percentage of internet users will constantly growing in the next decade.
An interesting fact is that men are the dominate internet user in India with 71% and just 29% are women.
Social media usage
Another interesting topic is Social Media usage. Based on some statistics in 2021, there will be around 358.2 million social network users in India, a significant increase from about 216.5 million nowadays. This means that the social network users in India are expected to increase around 16.3%.
Facebook is the most popular one in the country. There were about 195 million Facebook users in India as 2016, placing the country as the largest Facebook user base in the world. Some of the other popular platforms are WhatsApp, YouTube and Skype.
An interesting fact is that the most desired type of content online in India is video. With Bollywood and the large entertainment industry in India, Youtube is a big part of people’s usage. But there is one big issue for the consumers
How to access high-speed internet in order to watch YouTube or Netflix or other video distributor?
62% says that they never used YouTube but still most of them place it as one of the most desirable websites.
The answer — broadband internet
It is much faster and stronger connection compared to mobile but still, there are only 5% of people with cable internet. That is an opportunity for local and international businesses. There is an obvious need for fast internet to consume video content and a huge market to conquer.
E-commerce trends in India
Another area is e-commerce with 43.8% of internet users buying online in 2016, online shopping is a trending online activity. Retail e-commerce sales in India are about 16 billion $ a year and is it expected to be around 45 billion $ in 2021. This number is huge compared to the global average — which is around 38% in 2016. This makes India and the second biggest online shopping nation in the world.
45 billion $ in 2021 expected retail e-commerce sales in India
Final words
In conclusion, India is a huge internet market with a fast-growing penetration rate for internet usage, social media and e-commerce. The most desirable content is video but the lack of high-speed internet stops a lot of people using it. In the next decade, India will continue growing as a consumer of the internet and a lot of businesses can use this opportunity and provide services to the second biggest country in the world.
Source: https://www.statista.com/topics/2157/internet-usage-in-india/
