More than half of new Internet users in India will be from rural communities, and rural users will constitute almost half (48%) of connected users in India by 2020, a report ''The Rising Connected Consumer in Rural India" (pdf) by The Boston Consulting Group suggests. The report adds that number of Indian rural internet users will increase from about 120 million in 2015 to about 315 million 2020, registering close to a 30% y-o-y growth. The growth will be driven by cheaper handsets, explosion of wireless and wireline networks; but this will change how rural consumers interact with companies, as the report claims that the pattern of internet use in rural areas is different from that of its urban counterpart. All data in this report is taken from a survey answered by 4,000 rural consumers in 27 villages in 14 states in 2015 and 2016. Consumer spending behaviors and product preferences are different in both situations, and interestingly the report pointed out that internet users in rural India are “almost exclusively” men who make up 98% of the total connected users. This is different in an urban setting; even though urban Internet users could be male dominated with 79% of them being male, women are constantly growing in numbers and currently constitute 21% of the total urban users. Categorizing rural Internet users The report adds that “it is a mistake to regard rural users as single set” of users and classifies users in rural communities into 5 different categories based on their internet usage…
