India will have 900 million internet users by 2025: Report

Representative image (Source: Reuters)

India will have 900 million active Internet users by 2025, growing 45 percent in the next five year, according to a recent report . The country had 622 million as of 2020.

The report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and Kantar-ICUBE, a consulting firm, states that internet penetration in rural India is growing at a much faster rate on a year-on-year basis. Internet users grew by 4 percent in urban India, reaching 323 million users in 2020, whereas growth in rural India was 13 percent taking the active internet users to 299 million over the past year.

India's population stands at 1.4 billion. With a sizable population not accessing the internet actively in rural India, there is huge headroom for growth in the next few years, the report pointed out.

Biswapriya Bhattacharjee, Executive Vice President, Insights Division, Kantar, said, “By 2025, there would be a greater number of internet users in rural India than in urban India. Given this, the digital ecosystem will need to evolve to address the specific needs of this emerging demography. Vernacular, Voice and Video will emerge as the game changers for the digital ecosystem over the next few years.”

Despite the growth, gender divide persists. Close to 58 percent of the internet users are male, the rest female. The proportion is the same in both urban and rural regions.

On average, Indians spend about 107 minutes daily using the internet. However, the urban population spends more time (115 minutes) on the internet than rural (99 minutes). While 43 percent of urban Indians use the internet for shopping, compared to 13 percent in rural India.

Mobile phones remain the device of choice for accessing the internet in both urban and rural India. Given the affordability of the devices along with the availability of cheaper data plans, accessing the Internet through a mobile device has clearly become the first choice, according to the report.

When comparing internet penetration in China and the US, by the end of 2020 China had 989 million users according to China Internet Network Information Center and the US had over 313 million active internet users nationwide.