A survey on Internet usage has found that India's Internet users crossed 100 million in September 2011, a growth of 13 per cent against last year.

At this rate of growth, the country is poised to touch 121 million users by December 2011.

The survey was conducted by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB. It looked at users in urban and rural India.

The study has found that among the active Internet users in urban India — active implies users who had used the Internet at least once in the last one month — 89 per cent of the 28 million active users in 30 cities used the Internet primarily for e-mail, followed by 71 per cent for social networking and visiting Web sites.

Music, videos and photos came at the low end, with just 49 per cent usage. But this was the top usage (46 per cent) in rural India.

Urban occurrence

Commenting on this, Dr Subho Ray, President of IAMAI, said Internet usage in urban areas had more to do with business-related communication.

“This is one of the key reasons for high usage for e-mails. Also we need to keep in mind that while on the move people use the Internet to access or respond to emails more than chatting or accessing social networking sites,” he told Business Line .

The survey also found that the youth was driving the usage of the Internet in the country, with schoolchildren (21 per cent), college children (27 per cent) and young men (27 per cent) in the 21-35 age group accounting for 75 per cent of urban Internet usage.

Among India's cities, Mumbai (6.2 million) had the highest number of active Internet users, followed by Delhi/NCR (5 million), Kolkata (2.4 million) and Chennai (2.2 million). IT city Bangalore with 1.7 million had the same number of users as Ahmadabad, while Hyderabad (1.8 million) had marginally higher users.

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