India Fourth in the World Among Internet Users

3 December 2008: India has the fourth highest number of internet users in the world. With a total of 13.5 million Internet subscribers, which represents 1.15 per 100 people, broadband subscribers accounted for five million among them. Also, with the number of mobile phone users touching a staggering 300 million and growing by about eight million per month, the government of India sees mobile-Internet as a further exponential growth platform.

Next to India comes Brazil with 53.1 million users, UK 40.2 million, Germany 39.1 million, Republic of Korea 35.5 million, Italy 32 million and France 31.5 million. From about 70 million people 1.7 per cent of the world population who had access to the Internet at the end of 2007 the figure crossed 134.8 crore by 2007.

Asia has the highest number of Internet users with an estimated 568.7 million people followed by the Americas with 377.9 million. Europe ranks third in this list with 335.9 million users and Africa and Oceania close the rank with 51.8 million and 14 million users respectively, according to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).

However India is yet to be enlisted amongst the top ten nations in terms of broadband connections where too US stands first with 73.2 million connections. China has 66.4 million, Japan 28.28 million, Germany 19.6 million, UK 15.6 million, France 15.5 million, Republic of Korea 14. 7 million, Italy 10.8 million, Canada 9 million and Spain 8 million broadband connections.