Internet user growth zooms in India

UN sees 89 % annual growth in internet usage in India.

27 Nov, 2005, NEW DELHI: The Internet scenario in the country is definitely rosy, going by the figures released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and development.

In its Information Economy Report 2005, UNCTAD said India has 35 million Internet users. This is an 89 per cent annual growth, the report said.

But India lags far behind China’s user base of 94 million, the UNCTAD report said. The report also confirms that despite the huge gap between the number of users in India and China , the growth rate in India is more. User growth rate in China grew by just 18.2 per cent, compared to India’s 89.4.

''In India, where liberalisation has already progressed, international backbone connectivity has exploded - and this has had positive effects for the development of Internet-based activity in that country,'' the report said.
China has three times more internet users than India, largely backed by its international bandwidth availability, which is nine times over the latter.

India’s international bandwidth availability is 3000, while the comparative figure for China, as per the report, is 27,216.

In case of internet penetration also China is way ahead of India. Internet penetration per 100 in India is just 3.2 , as against 7.2 for China, which again is far behind the internet penetration of developed countries.
The US has an internet penetration of 62.3, while for Sweden it is 75, the report said.

UNCTA'S annual Information Economy Report analyses events, trends and processes in information and communication technologies (ICT) and identifies their major implications.