India will have more Internet users by the end of this year and by 2018 over 500 million people will be connected to the Internet says Google India.
Google India's Managing director Rajan Anandan stated at the “Digitizing India” organised by FICCI Ladies Organisation that almost half of the country will be connected through the Internet by 2018. He added that India now has over 200 million internet users and is adding 5 million new users every month.
He stated, “Even at the current growth rate, we will have 500 million Indians on the Internet by 2018. By the end of this year, India will become larger than the U.S. in terms of number of Internet users. By 2018, India will have twice the number of Internet users as the U.S. does. Almost half the country will be connected through the Internet.”
He added that people are increasingly using online platform for retail purchase. Smartphones took eight years to reach a billion consumers, but wearable gadgets will take four years to reach a billion consumers, he stated further.
“Everything is getting accelerated with technology. Every new wave of technology has taken half as long as the previous technology. The next big thing will take half the time taken by smartphones,” he said. ”The future is here. Wearable devices are the next big thing. It is taking on computing. All these wearable devices will penetrate across the world very fast, and with it technology will get better and better,” he added.
Google India says that 2.8 billion people in the world are connected through the Internet in 2014, by 2020, more than five billion people will be using the Internet.
According to a recent report by Morgan Stanley, Indian Internet users will rise to 330 million in 2016, and by 2018 India will have 519 million Internet users. The rise will be driven by the influx of budget smartphones in the Country. Over the past 2 years the smartphone prices have dropped from $200 to $50.
Source: Hindu