Rajwansh.com

India is currently the 5th largest country in terms of Internet usage. This piece of information does not sound too bad considering the fact that India is ahead of countries like UK, France, Canada and Australia. But, what if I tell you that Internet penetration at only 3.5% is lowest in India. Yes, it means there are only 3-4 people in a scale of 100 which have access to Internet in India. On the other hand Australia, Japan and Canada have close to 70% Internet penetration. Even china, the 2nd largest country in terms of Internet usage, is way ahead at 10.4%, thats about 3 times more than India’s Internet penetration.

Out of a total population of 1 Billion only 4 crores people in India have ever used the Internet. Of these lucky 4 crores only 2.5 crores are regular internet users. Clearly there is a lot of scope of Internet growth in India. So what can be the factors that may drive this growth. Some of them can be:-

• Cheaper Internet Rates.
• Inexpensive Computers.
• Mobile Internet.

The last point in my list seems to be the most interesting. Just imagine, A rickshaw puller using Internet on his mobile, sounds crazy? May be now, but who knows after 5 years this might be a reality. Everyone knows mobiles are getting cheaper by the day. A GPRS mobile starts from around 3500 INR in India, that just less than 100$.

With new technologies like 3G emerging in a big way, it will sooner rather than later that people will start accessing Internet on mobile in a big way. Thus, most people won’t sit infront of the pc/laptop to access their emails. Simply because email will become one of the most basic requirement of most human beings in years to come and thus its accessibility would not remain limited to PC/Laptop and it won’t make any sense to carry your laptop all the time just to check your email. Mobile phones will provide people an easier option to recieve and send emails as it is a personal device and it is with us wherever we go. Many CEO’s and top professionals in industry are already doing it, in next 5 years even children may adopt this trend not because of any other reason but because it will become a necessity for everyone to always stay connected and communicate.

I like listening to Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google. Now a days, he talks a lot about what would happen when the next 1 billion people come online. He however knows, these 1 billion users would mostly consist of people from India & China. 1 billion users can never be added on the Internet without a solid contribution from these two countries. Everybody knows there are more mobile users in these countries than PC/laptop users. So a large part ofInternet growth will actually come from mobiles and not computers. With things like local content coming up in a big way, people not knowing english will also be able to use the Internet and contribute to its growth.

In short Mobile Mobile Mobile, this may be the only mantra for reaching out to masses through the Internet. Companies should get ready now for the next big wave which will be called Mobile Internet.