The internet users in India has seen a lower than expected growth all these years despite major expectations arising from the frivolous rise seen in telecom subscribers count.
A latest report by Forrester, forecasts that India would become the third largest country in terms of internet users across the globe. The report takes into account an average growth of 10-20 percent in online users in India. The report also forecasts the total number of internet users worldwide would touch 2.2 billion by 2013.
Currently the estimates for total online population in India ranges anywhere between 50 million to 80 million users. China currently has 300million+ online user, it recently overtook US in terms of online user strength.
Is it really possible ?
Indian telecom growth was just recently seen breaking records even after a stupendous growth seen in recent years and a decade of wireless services availability. The growth would be largely be for the online sector in India as Telcos to garner more revenues would focus more on providing other telemedia services than just telephony.
The availability of superior telecom infrastructure would thus form the backbone of broadband growth in India. The growth rate of 10-20 per cent for India’s online population is easily achievable looking at the youth oriented demographics of the country. The English speaking population in India is much better than even China which has rode its online growth on the back of heavy availability of vernacular content.
The government would also be renewing its thrust on broadband and Internet related growth as success of many of its e-governance projects hinges on mass availability of internet. Another major growth area for Online sector would be the better availability of wi-fi and wi-max related services as laptop sales-to-PC sales ratio is much higher in India compared to other countries.
A report by Assocham seems to have seconded the thought by stating that there will be 20 million 3G-based broadband subscribers by 2014 whereas WiMax operators will be able to intake 60 million users.
Major areas to achieve projected broadband growth in India:
- Low cost availability of broadband
- Major availability of wireless Internet services
- Bundling of Faster and cheaper internet access with cell phones and fixed line telephony.
- Low cost PC ownership through initiatives like NetPC.
- Availability of larger e-governance and mass services online as initiatives like IRCTC has yielded good results.
Thus it won’t be naive to expect such growth looking at the telecom advancements and other demographics profile of Indian Users coupled with the impending e-commerce boom.
Well here is a sceptic’s view
There have been many articles by tech soothsayers in the past about the bright future for broadband with more and more indians getting connected. However, as compared to the magnitude of their utopian predictions, we haven’t even reached there even half way.
The reason is simple,
First – our Government, inspite of its pretense that it wants a boost in communications, looks at licenses of 3G and Wimax as a nice source of revenue, rather than an instrument of regulation. Every second month you would see the reserve price of these services jacked up.
Way before private players are allowed to operate, state owned operators roll-out newer services like Wimax at exploitative rates.
Take a close look at most “basic” broadband plans which are being offered by state telcos. They give you a “ferrari” of 2 MBPs, with a free data transfer of 1GB “200 meters to ride”. and beyond that there is an exhorbitant toll for every 100 meters!!
nice article
I think what we need is innovation in the way service is provided to users. I came across this website: hayai.in which looks like it can potentially change the scenario of broadband in India.
Secondly, innovation has to be backed by infrastructure and the fact that the current infra is far from being labeled as ‘world class’.
Thirdly, the uptake of computers/laptops needs to increase for a subsequent increase of broadband penetration.
And lastly, in my opinion, the figure of 60 million WiMax users by ASSOCHAM is far fetched dream. I think 3G will be the real driver of broadband in India where the hardware, infra and userbase is already in place.
what you think?