India-The 3rd largest.

In terms of population , India stands at second rank. Its a good point but not so fascinating.
But it's really an honor to say that India is soon going to become 3rd largest in terms of internet usage.

By the end of this year, one in every 10 Indians will be an internet user, making the country the third-largest internet market in the world after China and the United States.

At the end of December, 121 million Indians will be accessing the internet at least once a week to check emails, chat or log on to a social network, a survey has found. India is adding internet users at the rate of almost 5-7 million a month, and at the current pace it will surpass the US, which has about 245 million users, in less than two years.

According to the survey by IMRB and the Internet & Mobile Association of India, the country's internet population was about 112 million by September. When this year ends, about 9 million more will be added, making India one of the world's top markets for Net-based businesses. 

For entrepreneurs such as Deepinder Goyal, founder and CEO of Zomato.com, the Internet is changing the business landscape forever in favour of India. "Now startups look to India when planning to start a business... earlier they would flock to the US," he said.

About 2 billion people worldwide access the Internet and 25% of them are from China. India contributes about 6% to the world's Net population and the US 12.5%. 

Internet is growing at an unprecedented pace in India. Businesses are experimenting with new models, creating a snowballing effect. It has got the venture capitalists interested and the kind of valuations in the e-commerce space we are seeing are phenomenal," said Upen Rai, director at Times Internet. 

 

Even though the user base is vast, the total number of internet connections is just 14.7 million, of which 11.87 million are broadband links. This indicates that most people share internet access in offices or cyber cafes. An average unlimited broadband plan costing about Rs 750 per month is still too expensive in a country where the monthly per capita income is Rs 2,810. 

Of all the broadband connections, only 12% access the internet at 1 Mbps or higher speeds. About 54% of users access internet at speeds of 256 Kbps or lower, and for 34% the speeds are between 256 Kbps and 1 Mbps. 

Mumbai has the highest number of internet users (6.2 million) followed by Delhi/NCR (5 million), Kolkata (2.4 million) and Chennai (2.2 million). While common access points such as cyber cafes continue to be important, there has been a dramatic fall in access from cyber cafes. 

Access from home, at 37%, has grown at the cost of cyber cafes and access from offices. The survey found that of the active users, 48% used the internet at least six times a week and 28% used it daily.

 These were some of the surveys that went through and came with few results. Now lets see where India stands in future... :-)))