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Have no personal computer (PC), but still want to surf the Internet? No problem. Indians are increasingly accessing the net using mobile phones, bypassing the PCs completely. In fact, Internet accessibility is one of the five most important criteria in the purchase of a mobile phone.
Only about 3% Indians - or 3.6 crore - have a PC but the number of mobile phone users is about 80% - 87 crore. India’s Internet user base is currently 4.70 crore customers. Of these, 1.18 crore now access the net on their mobile phones - and half of them, 59 lakh, have never used a PC. The number is rising with the introduction of 3G, Mr Prashanth Mani, Regional General Manager (West), Nokia India, told Business Line here on Wednesday, releasing a survey undertaken recently by Nielsen on “Internet Usage Study”, commissioned by Nokia.
Globally, an estimated 1.8 billion users would be browsing the Internet on mobile phones by 2013, making the net base in this segment larger than that of the PCs. However, there is also a snag: while PCs can fight a virus intruding from the Internet, mobile phones cannot, as of now.
Clearly, having access to a PC and surfing the Internet are two different things! As a matter of fact, Internet browsing has emerged as the number one habit for consumers using Internet on their mobile handsets, followed by email and chatting, he said. While buying a new handset, its accessibility to the Internet is an important consideration now, unlike in the past when the customer would consider camera and FM Radio or music downloads as important criteria.
Interestingly, the Internet is breaking another myth - that it is an urban phenomenon. Only about 40% webpage downloads have been reported from metropolitan cities, as against 60% from the non-metro and smaller cities and towns. Nielsen’s survey sample was about 3,000 people from all walks of life, and included those using mobile phones priced up to Rs 6,000 from brands like Samsung, GFive, Micromax and Motorola. The same mobile service operator was used in the survey, across eight Indian cities, for an unbiased exercise, Mr Mani said.
The survey found that 73% of the Internet browsers were under 35 years of age, and 80% of them used chatting and social networking sites. The top websites browsed by consumers, in that order, are: Yahoo!, Facebook, Gmail, Google, Orkut, Twitter, Hotmail, YouTube, Songs.pk, and Ibibo.com.
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