India to have 850 mn online users by 2025, Jio spurs digital trend: Survey

India will have more than 850 million online users by 2025, with Reliance Jio 4G triggering most of the growth which has added 100 million connections in just seven months, a survey revealed on Thursday.

"While it took the country eight years to reach 250 million 3G connections, Reliance Jio 4G network added 100 million connections in just seven months," said the survey conducted by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

It estimated that by 2020, half of all Internet users in India will be rural, 40 per cent of whom will be women and 33 per cent will be of 35 years of age or older.

"Digital's impact is becoming pervasive across all consumer segments. This breaks the earlier trend in the country when the initial digital consumers were male, millennial and mostly metro-based," the survey noted.

It predicted that digitally influenced spending, which currently stands at $45 billion-$50 billion a year, may increase more than tenfold to between $500 billion-$550 billion.

"This will account for 30 per cent to 35 per cent of all retail sales by 2025," the survey found.

The survey examined the changing behaviour of Indian consumers across more than 50 product categories through questionnaires and interviews with more than 10,000 consumers in 30 locations nationwide.