MUMBAI: With the digital and online consumption steadily increasing in the country through mobile handsets and more, the total number of internet users in India is set to reach 165million by March 2015, according to the ‘Mobile Internet in India’ joint report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and Indian Market Research Bureau (IMRB).
The number of mobile internet users who accessed the web through dongles and tablet PCs increased to 87.1mn by December 2012 from 78.7mn users in October 2012. This is expected to grow further to 92.9mn by March 2013, 130.6mn by March 2014 and is said to reach 164.8mn by March 2015.
The report stated that the number of mobile internet users in the country stood at 4.1mn in March 2009. The study was conducted in approximately 21,000 households from 35 cities in India.
Of the 78.7mn users in October 2012, 61mn were off-deck users accessing sites other than those of the operator, while 15mn were on-deck users accessing only sites specified by the operator. The remaining 2.7mn users accessed the internet using dongles using 2G, 3G or high-speed data cards.
According to the report, the average monthly bill of a user who accessed internet on mobile devices is Rs 460, of which around Rs 198 is spent towards internet expenses. Email, social networking services (SNS) and messengers had a high usage rate amongst mobile internet users.
While online games are accessed by nearly 50 per cent of the users, less than 30 per cent of users read online news and watch online videos.
“This is a very healthy trend as it shows willingness of the users to spend nearly 40 per cent of the bill towards Internet access. The rest is spent on voice services,” mentioned the report.