India is in the 4th place in terms of Internet users today. According to the Internet World Stats, as of 2010, China ranked 1st in the number of internet users (42 crores) followed by the United States (23.9 crores), Japan (9.9 crores), and India (8.1 crores). The growing popularity of cybercafes has been playing a major role in fueling the Internet development in India. According to the Press Information Bureau, Govt of India (PIB), India has over 1 crore broadband subscribers.
E-commerce penetration among Internet users:
Though the number of Internet users in India is high, its penetration level is very low. The good news is that it has been increasing steadily year on year. According to Internet World Stats, Internet penetration rate in 2010 was about 8.5%, whereas it was around 7% in 2009. It was 0.5% in 2000 and 3.7% in 2007.
The I-Cube 2009 study stated that there had been the limited penetration of e-commerce among Internet users. The study included a survey in top 15 cities in the country. It surveyed about 17.5 million active internet users who access Internet at least once in a month. It was found that among them, 13.6 million users search for information regarding products. Of these, around 7.4 million users (40%) had bought some product or service over the Internet.
The active Internet users purchasing products or services are increasing. Online traveling services with a market share of 76% is dominated in India’s e-commerce. This is followed by e-tailing (8%), financial services (8%), digital downloads (2%) and other online services (6%).