Celebrating Independence Day in India, TrendsSpotting releases a short review on Online India statistics:

Internet use

According to ComScore: 28 million people in India age 15 and older accessed the Internet from home and work locations in May 2008.
Internet users in India represent approximately only 3% of the population (potential for continued strong growth).

The average Indian Internet user visited the Internet 25 times during the month and was online for 28 minutes per visit.
• Those between the ages of 15-24 were the heaviest Internet users among all age segments, spending nearly 12 hours online per month on average.
• Some of the fastest growing Web site categories during the past year included Maps (up 64 percent), Sports (up 60 percent), Entertainment – Movies (up 55 percent), and Finance – News/Research (up 52 percent).

Top Websites in India:
Top players are showing a relative growth from year 2007.
Google Sites ranked as the top property in India: nearly 20 million visitors in May, a 35% increase versus year ago and the largest growth among all other properties. That’s too include: Google Search (up 38% to 17.1 million visitors), social networking site Orkut (up 39% to 9.3 million visitors), blog platform Blogger.com (up 102% to 7.3 million visitors), and video site YouTube (up 131% to 6.3 million visitors).
Yahoo! Sites ran second with 18.7 million visitors (up 28%), followed by Microsoft Sites with 12 million (up 11%). Indian portal Rediff.com ranked as the top local property with 9.2 million visitor (up 19%), followed by government site NIC.in with nearly 6 million visitors (up 5%).

The top ten online activities:

According to WAT consultants – most popular topics to involve youth on SN communities are: Bollywood, Cricket, Football, Wrestling, Music (Indian Metal and Rock) and Gaming.

Internet Shopping a growing trend:
Nielsen Global Online Survey reveals that 78% of the Indian respondents have used the Internet to make a purchase and more than half of the respondents (55%) have made at least one online purchase in the past one month.
Popular products to shop online:
73% Online Indians have purchased airline tickets/reservations in the past three months (this percentage being the highest for any country in Asia Pacific). Books (46%), Electronic Equipments (29%), Tours & Hotel Reservations (24%), Videos/DVDs/Games (23%), Event Tickets (23%), Clothing/Accessories/Shoes (21%), and Music (20%) are some other popular purchases made online by Indians.

Mobile stats:
TRAI reports 286.86 million wireless users in India at the end of June, up 55% from a year earlier. The Indian Mobile market is considered the fastest-growing in the world.

You might be wondering why I, Taly was the one to publish this report. Good question. Frankly, Apurba, Indian born, stats minded (Rediff employee) could have done a much better job. Only our dear Apurba went traveling for few days. I hope I have captured Online India well enough ( I must say that it was quite a surprise to find so little published research on India). Apurba – have a wonderful vacation and Happy Independence day to you and to all our dedicated Indian readers.

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