According to the latest statistics released by the Internet Governance Forum, due to convene in Hyderabad a couple of days from today, India has the fourth largest number of Internet users in the world, with 81 million users. India is behind the US (220 million), China (210 million) and Japan (88.1 million). A report here in the Economic Times. Contrast this with the figures released by the TRAI - India had 11.6 million Internet (dialup) connections by June 30th 2008. Even if we assume 14 million dialup connections by now, at 81 million users, that's still almost 6 users per connection...on dialup. In case of broadband, India doesn't even rank, with only 5.05 million broadband connections by the October 31st 2008. Last year, the Internet And Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International had released a report, as per which India had 32 million active Internet users, and the pointless figure of 46 million "Ever" Internet users (those who have ever used the Internet in their lifetime). Looks like it has been a rather dramatic year for the Internet business in India, with a meteoric increase in user base from 32 million to 81 million. Accordingly, please do make the requisite changes to your powerpoint slides...but please, keep your business plans more in line with the market conditions. Do also take a lookat our Digitoon for the week. It might help take your mind off the figure of "81 million Internet users".
