In its report ‘The Future of Internet in India’, Nasscom has predicted a two-fold rise in the internet user base in the country over the next four years. More interestingly, the report has suggested that a bulk of the future growth in internet penetration would come from rural areas. Seven out of every 10 new users will come from rural areas.
At present, the number of internet users in the country stands at 40 crore, which works out to more than 30 per cent of the population. If the Nasscom report is to be believed, this will leap to more than 50 per cent by 2020. In terms of numbers, the total number of people with access to the internet will exceed 73 crore and 75 per cent of the next 300 million users will be living in rural India.
The report says India, whose internet user base is the second largest after China, will remain the fastest growing market. It says 75 per cent of the new users will consume data in local language, which means digital natives will trigger the next IT revolution in the country. India’s internet consumption has already exceeded the US to become number two globally. By 2020, internet is expected to penetrate deeper into hinterland of the country, helping create more opportunities for everyone, Nasscom President R Chandrashekhar has said.
As much as 75 per cent of people in the country still live in rural areas. Therefore it is apt to say that India lives in Bharat. The tall talk about the digital breakthrough in India will be a misnomer unless the real digital revolution in the country reaches rural India. At present, hardly 15 per cent of the rural India has access to the technology.
In comparison, 53 per cent of urban areas have mobile internet connectivity thereby highlighting the urban–rural divide in the country. However, this will change soon. Fast penetration of mobile phones in rural areas, availability of cheap smart phones in the market, reduction in data charges and a large population of youngsters have combined to fuel the fast penetration of mobile technologies.
India hit 306 million mobile internet users by December 2015 growing at an overall 77 per cent from 2014, according to a report released jointly by the Internet and Mobile Association of India and consultancy firm IMRB. The report projects 371 million mobile internet users for the country by June 2016. According to TRAI, there were 988.7 million mobile connections in India as of August 2015.
At present, many government programmes and awareness measures do not reach rural India because of the digital divide. While mobile users in urban India use digital technologies for communication and other utilitarian purposes such as e-marketing, their counterparts in rural areas use internet mostly for entertainment.
E-commerce in India has seen some big-ticket investments and glowing projections. According to a Goldman Sachs report, India’s e-commerce market will cross $100 billion by 2020. A significant portion of this growth will come from rural users. At present, 15 per cent of mobile internet users in urban India shop via mobile internet while the number is just 1 per cent in case of rural users.
However, this will change if internet penetration makes deep inroads into rural areas. Farmers can get real time weather updates and best prices for their produce on their mobile phones. This can give a huge boost to nation’s farm output and contribute to the GDP. The digital boom will drive rapid growth in a variety of sectors such as e-commerce, travel and hospitality, public sector, financial technologies and media. All this will result in a big boom in employment. These digital natives will contribute at least an additional 2 per cent to the growth of GDP.
