37% Indians accessed information in vernacular

Out of 122 mn active internet users in the country, 45 mn accessed content in local languages

Busting the myth that Internet is restricted mostly to English-speaking group, a recent report shows around 37% the Indians have accessed the Internet in their local languages in 2012.

According to the Vernacular Report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB, published on Wednesday, 45 million users accessed content on the Internet in their local language as of December 2012, while there are 122 million active internet users in the country.

Users in rural areas are more inclined to accessing contents in local languages than their urban counterpart. As many as  64% of the Rural Internet users have used the internet in their local languages compared to only 25 percent of Urban Internet Users.

According to the report, a higher proportion of the rural population is aware of vernacular language content than the urban users. This is primarily due to the availability of various internet services such as government services and land record services in local languages.

According to the report, among the many Internet services used by users of vernacular content, email is the most popular application used (94%). The local language content users access news, matrimonial services and online banking services way more in their local languages than in English.