Internet Usage in Rural India is Accelerating
Rural India as a backwater of low literacy rates and internet usage? Think again. Over the two year time period of 2008 to 2010, Internet usage in rural India is projected to grow at a rate of 30 per cent per year. This will raise the number of rural Internet users, from 3.3 million (33 Lakhs) in 2008 to 5.4 million (54 Lakhs) by the end of 2010. If that number has not impressed you already, it should – there are 112 countries in the world with a total population that equals less than the number of Indian Rural people who access the Internet. Most of these users (85%) have said their main purpose of the Internet is to access E-mail, which should bode well for our country's literacy rates.
The research was conducted jointly by IAMAI (Internet & Mobile Association of India) and IMRB (Indian Market Research Bureau). You can view the complete press release (webpage) or download the detailed report as a PDF from their website. As cities inch closer to saturation point, the next big market for Mobile operators and Internet Service Providers will necessarily be India's vast country-side which has not quite received as much attention from private players in the segment. Note that even the figure of 54 Lakh users is a reference only to "active users" who have accessed the Internet sometime in the last 30 days. That number would be higher if active users were to be counted together with the number of people who do have access to the Internet, but have not used it in the last 30 days – almost 77 Lakh users.
According to the survey's release, 67% of rural users access music and video over the Internet, 48% of the people claim to have used the Internet for educational research and 42% claim they used it for general information search. The report further highlights that about 13% of the people use the Internet for knowing more about latest farming techniques and 8% of the people use the Internet to find more about fertilizers and pesticides. This is important considering the importance of farming in rural India. If there are Internet related initiatives with farming as a focus, these could trigger Internet literacy to rise faster.
Our take on this, is that while Internet literacy and access to it is important, it would still come to naught if basic literacy remained low in rural areas of the country. Also, while the research might be correct, it might be too early to rejoice because of the following reasons. Some cities and towns are spread over such a large area, that surrounding villages are gobbled up by the urban expansion yet remain listed officially as being a "rural" area. Also, the acute rich-poor divide comes into play, where only the top of the pyramid has the economic muscle and the required literacy to actually make use of Internet access. While 85% of those surveyed claim that Email/communication is the "dominant purpose of Internet access in rural India", the truth just might be more unsavoury and the claim of Email might be just that.
Rural India as a backwater of low literacy rates and internet usage? Think again. Over the two year time period of 2008 to 2010, Internet usage in rural India is projected to grow at a rate of 30 per cent per year. This will raise the number of rural Internet users, from 3.3 million (33 Lakhs) in 2008 to 5.4 million (54 Lakhs) by the end of 2010. If that number has not impressed you already, it should – there are 112 countries in the world with a total population that equals less than the number of Indian Rural people who access the Internet. Most of these users (85%) have said their main purpose of the Internet is to access E-mail, which should bode well for our country's literacy rates.
The research was conducted jointly by IAMAI (Internet & Mobile Association of India) and IMRB (Indian Market Research Bureau). You can view the complete press release (webpage) or download the detailed report as a PDF from their website. As cities inch closer to saturation point, the next big market for Mobile operators and Internet Service Providers will necessarily be India's vast country-side which has not quite received as much attention from private players in the segment. Note that even the figure of 54 Lakh users is a reference only to "active users" who have accessed the Internet sometime in the last 30 days. That number would be higher if active users were to be counted together with the number of people who do have access to the Internet, but have not used it in the last 30 days – almost 77 Lakh users.
According to the survey's release, 67% of rural users access music and video over the Internet, 48% of the people claim to have used the Internet for educational research and 42% claim they used it for general information search. The report further highlights that about 13% of the people use the Internet for knowing more about latest farming techniques and 8% of the people use the Internet to find more about fertilizers and pesticides. This is important considering the importance of farming in rural India. If there are Internet related initiatives with farming as a focus, these could trigger Internet literacy to rise faster.
Our take on this, is that while Internet literacy and access to it is important, it would still come to naught if basic literacy remained low in rural areas of the country. Also, while the research might be correct, it might be too early to rejoice because of the following reasons. Some cities and towns are spread over such a large area, that surrounding villages are gobbled up by the urban expansion yet remain listed officially as being a "rural" area. Also, the acute rich-poor divide comes into play, where only the top of the pyramid has the economic muscle and the required literacy to actually make use of Internet access. While 85% of those surveyed claim that Email/communication is the "dominant purpose of Internet access in rural India", the truth just might be more unsavoury and the claim of Email might be just that.
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