In India, almost 50% users are accessing internet through their mobile device rather than the PC. A recent report has placed the country on 114th position on the basis of internet speed worldwide. An Indian government undertaking survey firm “National Sample Survey Organization” (NSSO) has revealed that only 3.5 among 1000 rural households had internet connectivity during 2009-10. However, internet connectivity in urban households were somewhat greater than the rural households; 59.5 among 1000 households had internet connectivity during the survey period. It quite clear from the above information that the ratio of internet connections in Urban and rural India was 17- to- one (17:1) during 2009-10.
The report has also elaborated state wise distribution of internet connections across the country. In terms of internet penetration in rural households, GOA ranked first with 50 per 1000 households, followed by Kerala and Arunachal Pradesh with 34 and 19 per 1000 households respectively during July 2009 to June 2010.
The internet penetration was even shabby in the elite cities of the country such as Mumbai and Delhi. In Mumbai, just 104 among 1000 households had internet connection during the survey period, followed by Himachal Pradesh and Delhi with 95 and 89.5 among 1000 households respectively during the same period.
The report, which has been provided by NSSO, is based on information collected during July 2009-June 2010 from 7,428 villages and 5,263 urban blocks spread throughout the country. All stats have been gathered in two different scheduled by taking slots of 100,855 and 100,794 households respectively for the survey.
However, the data provided by NSSO is somewhat obsolete, almost one year back, and I think the ineternet users might increase with a significant figure during this period due to strong penetrations of cheaper Smartphone and proliferation of Aakash Tablets across the country. Also, the report has not yet differentiated mobile and PC internet users across the country. In the last couple of years, the mobile internet users are outstandingly increasing and users are often using internet with their web-enabled feature phone in India.
