India overtakes Japan to claim 3rd-largest online population crown

India with 73.9 million net users is the world's third largest internet population, overtaking Japan but behind China and the US, according to research firm comScore.

Rising number of mobile audience, devices and consumption habits reveal consumers are becoming more platform agnostic in their digital media consumption and switch devices to stay up to date on email, news, social media, said comScore's India Digital Future in Focus 2013.

"Riding on a 31 per cent year-on-year increase, India's online population grew to 73.9 million. With an extended online universe in excess of 145 million the market is at a tipping point for online businesses. India is the world's third largest internet population," the report said. The country overtook Japan by adding 17.6 million users in 2012, the ComScore report said.

Of the total 644 million home and work internet users in Asia-Pacific as of March 2013, China accounted for a lion's share of 54 per cent followed by India (11.5 per cent) and Japan (11.4 per cent).