India becomes second-largest country with internet users -Governance Now

India becomes second-largest country with internet users

With 40% growth in the number of internet users, India surpasses USA

GN Bureau | June 2, 2016

#Mary Meeker #China #users #internet #India

The annual Internet Trends Report by Mary Meeker says that India is the only exception of the flat growth that internet has witnessed across the world.

Meeker is a former Morgan Stanley internet analyst who is now a partner at venture-capital fund Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers.

According to the report, the number of internet users in India grew rapidly, by 40% in 2015, to 277 million. In the process, India has become the only country where the growth rate of Internet users in 2015 was higher than that the previous year which was 33%.

India has surpassed USA to become the second-largest country in the world in terms of internet users, behind China.

Despite this, just about 22% of the Indian market is penetrated, offering scope for huge growth, particularly on mobile.

Some of the key findings in the report are:

Global smartphone user growth is down to 21% as compared to 31% and just 10% rise in shipments. Asia Pacific remains the largest market with a growth of 52% in 2015 as compared to 34% in 2008.
Also, at $158 per unit, India has the lowest average smartphone cost, though it is about 10 percent of the per capita income.
Internet advertising in the US has grown by about 20% since 2014. An average global mobile user uses more than 12 apps daily, while 80% of time is spent in 3 Apps. In the US these are Facebook, Chrome and YouTube, while worldwide it is Facebook, WhatsApp and Chrome.
Video viewership is exploding, with Snapchat and Facebook Live leading the way.
Messaging continues to grow rapidly and is dominated by WhatsApp, Facebook and WeChat.

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