India's internet user base to touch 400 million by Dec: IAMAI

Number of internet users  in India is expected  to touch 402 million by December, making it the second largest internet base in the world after China, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International said on Tuesday. India currently has 375 million internet users.

IAMAI spokesperson Nilotpal Chakravarti said the agency calculated unique users to arrive at the 375 million internet users. Of which, 276 million users accessed internet on mobile phones.

On October 17, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had said that India had 117.34 million broadband users in August, of which 100.88 million were users of mobile phones and dongles. Broadband internet speeds is counted at 512 kbps or more. “While Internet in India took more than a decade to move from 10 million to 100 million and three years from 100 million to 200 million, it took only a year to move from 300 million to 400 million users. Clearly, Internet is main stream in India today. And, the large internet users base is definitely a good news for the overall growth of the digital industry,” IAMAI and IMRB said in a statement. This year’s growth was 49 per cent more than 2014.

This number is expected to further surge to 462 million by June next year with more people coming online, especially through their mobile devices, it said.