It was always believed from the time when the Internet came that India and China will be the biggest markets in decades to come. China, as expected, took off early and no one expected that India will catch up quickly and will see such a huge rise in the number of users on the internet and social media in particular. This has opened up a tremendous market for companies and many tech companies are setting up their offices and bases in India to capitalise on the emerging market.
This huge internet-using young population is a base for a plethora of opportunities and digital marketing is trying to use the latest techniques and technologies to make sure they can understand the behaviour of this young population. But, before getting into the behaviour and other metrics of this population, it is very critical to know some of the most basic pieces of information about the user base like – how many active internet users are in India, what proportion of them are mobile users, how many of them are actively using social media and related questions. This becomes essential because Digital marketing tools aim at this username only and a good understanding of how the users are interacting and where they are interacting becomes beneficial.
Digital Population in India
The population of India according to recent figures is approximately 1.3 billion and is the second-most populous country in the world, after China according to various reports it is anticipated that India will take over China as the most populous country in the world within this decade. So to start with the population is so huge that even a percentage change in the digital user base adds many people to the fold.
Not only this, the most interesting fact is that the population of India is very young and this makes the future for Internet and digital marketing a very fertile place. As per estimates, more than 50% of the Indian population is below the age of 25 years and more than 65% population is below the age of 35 years so in a few years almost half of Indians will be the ones who took birth in this millennium. And therefore, have seen the Internet from an early age and the Internet has and is shaping their interactions and behaviour to a major extent.
The number of active internet users in India as per the latest report for 2021 stands out at 620 million people. Out of the 620 million people using the internet, the mobile internet users stand out at 570 million and social media users are 445 million people. The sheer number of users is astounding owing to a large population, just to put things in perspective, the number of social media users in the United States of America is 223 million, Germany is 66 million, the United Kingdom is 53 million and in France, it stands out at 50 million, therefore, India has more social media users than all of them combined to some extent!
Internet Penetration Rate
Before getting to the data, we need to understand what the internet penetration rate is. The Internet penetration rate is a number that shows the percentage of the population in any country that is using the internet through any medium. This fraction started with a very humble figure of 4% back in 2007 and since then the rise in the figure has nothing been short of a miracle, 2011 the internet penetration rate rose to 10%, so in a span of 4 years, we are seeing a rise of 6%. In 2015 the internet penetration rate rose to around 25-26% and then a major event took place, the launch of 4G backed with cheap availability of data and a segment of budget smartphones entirely and drastically changed the landscape. In 5 years, that is, in 2020 the internet penetration rate went up to as high as 48-50%.
Just within 13 years, the internet penetration rate that was standing at 4% in 2007 climbed up to 49% in 2020, this was the aspect that we started our blog with. It was always believed that India will show promising results in the decades to come, but within the first two decades of the 21st century, half of the population has been using the Internet in some form or the other has been a phenomenal success.
What this high and rapidly increasing internet penetration rate shows is that there has been the growth of a large number of digital solutions providers and the entire gamut ranging from the FMCG sector to the financial and payment sector to Government services is taking huge advantage of this miracle that is taking place. Companies are looking for new avenues for promotion of their products and Search engine optimisation (SEO) and digital marketing professionals combined with the knowledge of data science and new and emerging, critical technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning are set to transform the industry like never seen before.
How are Indians connecting to Internet?
As we noted that in the second decade of this century, we saw the rise of the market of budget smartphones and cheap and widespread availability of data, but how exactly are Indians connecting to the medium Internet. It is crucial because whether it is digital marketing or social media platforms, it is often observed that the behaviour and pattern of use are slightly different.
Of the total number of internet users in the country, approximately 96% of the users are connecting or have been using smartphones and that has made the difference. The percentage of users using a laptop or desktop as a medium for connecting to the internet stands out at 55%. An interesting thing to note in the same aspect is the rise in the number of Indians using wearables connected with the Internet and it is reported that around 14 million wearables were shipped in the last year.
The transfer and flow of data have been phenomenal and companies well equipped with skilled professionals and infrastructure in place are well suited to dominate the market in times to come as we noted before too, the nature of advertising and marketing is set to shift to a major extent to the online medium.
Social Media usage in India
Social media usage was set to grow with the number of Internet users and the internet penetration rate on a continuous rise in the country. But how many Indians are using social media and what social media platforms have made their place in the Indian market as of now?
The number of social media users as we saw before stands out at around 445 million users. What is interesting to note is the social network user penetration in India. In 2020, the number stands out at 50% but the most useful statistics that should be taken note of are the future numbers. It may rise to as high as 58% in 2022, 62% in 2023 and in 2024 the figure may rise to a whopping 66%.
The social media traffic that is garnered is also interesting, though not very shocking. Facebook has been able to catch the eyes of most young Indians and the traffic Facebook has of the social media users stands out at 78%, Instagram has 9%, followed by Youtube and Twitter at respectively 7% and 4%.
All these data show us that not only the number of internet users is growing in India but there has been also an expansion of the base of these users. There has been expansion both vertically and horizontally and with the young population getting online, the opportunities that it opens for companies are enormous, now they can directly reach out to their specific consumer base and the specific targeting of the advertising and marketing segments is the most interesting aspect go this growing development. We will keep a close look at the growing and changing dynamic nature of this trend in India, so stay tuned with us.
