India's broadband penetration extremely low: Forrester

Even as India increasingly shines with its prowess in the information technology sector, adoption of broadband in the country remains pathetic. According to a report by Forrester, urban India has only a 3 per cent adoption rate among its top three socio-economic classes. This is against a penetration of 62 per cent in South Korea, followed by Hong Kong at 57 per cent.

The report giving a perspective of broadband penetration and says that between now and 2015, consumer spending power in emerging economies like China and India will more than double from $4 trillion to $9 trillion ? nearly equivalent to the present spending power of Western Europe. This increased purchasing power will be fuelled by a billion consumers reaching middle class status in these countries who will increasingly depend on broadband for e-commerce and entertainment.

The research highlights that the Asian, North American and Northern European regions have the highest adoption rate. After South Korea and Hong Kong come the Netherlands, Canada and Japan with penetration rates of around 50 per cent. Rounding out the top tier are Sweden and metropolitan China, with penetration rates of 43 per cent and 41 per cent, respectively.

Forrester said that English and French-speaking countries around the world form a second tier. While the US might fancy itself as an across-the-board technology leader, just 39 per cent of Americans have broadband, placing it in a second tier along with the UK, France and Australia.

Other Western and Eastern European countries form a third tier of adoption. Only 21 per cent of German and Italian consumers have broadband access, with Spain close behind at 19 per cent. Eastern European investors'-darling Poland trails behind with a 12 per cent adoption rate, reflective of its developing nation status.

"India's broadband penetration is very low. Despite efforts to roll out the infrastructure, urban India has only a 3 per cent adoption rate among its top three socio-economic classes (SEC)," the report highlighted.

Dwelling on how the poor penetration can be improved, Forrester has said that urban Indian consumers will seek out the web as soon as they have the right hardware. "As broadband infrastructure is slowly rolled out in urban India, more consumers in the top SECs will seek out devices with a balance between price and quality. Companies like Lenovo and HP are in a prime position to strike this balance for consumers interested in PCs on a par with their Western counterparts," the report said.

It added that, limited-functionality offerings such as Nicholas Negroponte's $100 computer will likely cater mainly to consumers in the lower income rural areas.

"Once urban Indian consumers own the hardware, the connectivity will soon follow. To take advantage of this slow yet steadily growing online population, Microsoft should step in and aggressively advertise Windows Live to a market that hasn't yet been conquered by Google," it noted.