India's mobile Internet dominated by Google and Facebook users

Two years ago, we’d seen the Avendus report – “India goes Digital”. Now, they are back with a new report that discloses the mobile Internet trends in India. There is no doubt that mobile penetration has increased in India over the past couple of years and slowly yet steadily we are seeing a rise in mobile Internet traffic too.

The report points out that there are over 2.4 billion Internet users in the world, of which 1.5 billion access the web through their mobile devices. India has more than 160 million Internet users which is quite a meagre number compared to the world figures. However, in a very short span of time, 86 million of the overall users access Internet using their mobile devices. This means more than 50 percent of overall users in India access the Internet via mobile.

Current status of mobile Internet usage in India (March 2013)

The figures showing 3G-enabled connections are quite astonishing. In the last three to four years, people accessing the Internet via 3G have grown to 22 million, compared to the 15 million fixed-line broadband connections accrued over the past 17 years. This clearly shows the quick and wider acceptance of 3G. According to the report, mobile Internet penetration is driven by three key factors – access devices at right prices, affordable data connectivity and strong use cases (they provide reasons to users to adopt technology).

The report points out that 9 percent of the overall Internet pageviews in India come from mobile devices. It also shows how mobile users have been dependent on Google as 40 percent of Google searches made in India originate from mobile devices.

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Facebook has crossed a billion monthly active users worldwide, of which over 819 million access it through a mobile device. In fact, 41 percent of Facebook’s revenues came from mobile in Q2 2013. India follows a similar trend as 30 percent of Facebook users in India are mobile-only Internet users while 30 percent of new registrations come through mobile. This means that mobile Internet space in India is dominated by Facebook and Google. Moreover, even LinkedIn ranks India among its top 4 growth markets for mobile usage.

The report points that mobile Internet growth in India is way higher than what most people imagine. As on December 2012, India has 431 million Internet capable mobile devices in use.

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