India and the Internet

While browsing aimlessly, I stumbled upon this piece of data at http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm. You might already know some of these figures , but being a DI freak, I made some interesting observations-

* There is a strong correlation between internet penetration and economic development. Japan, SouthKorea,Singapore,Taiwan and South Korea at the highest tier; Bangladesh,Myanmar,Nepal and some central Asian countries at the lowest tier; while China,Indonesia,Phillipines and Thailand form the bulk of the middle tier. India, with 3.5% penetration, is still way way closer to the lower tier than the middle tier.

What is mind-boggling, for me at least, is that this correlation holds even when you look at figures from Europe ; with Nordic countries leading the pack followed by western europe and then central and eastern europe.

* Pakistan, India's never-to-be forgotten neighbor, increased penetration by a staggering 9000% over 2000-2007. Even though it started off with a small base, this is a stupendous achievement nonetheless and something India could look at. I personally think for too long the IT mandarins in the Indian government(both union and state) have focused on aspects like outsourcing and FDI without looking at domestic penetration as a critical component.

* Broadband penetration in India is around 0.1% but is growing the fastest(about 20% per month). No prizes for guessing if this growth is primarily urban or rural. Why do MTNL and BSNL ,both public sector companies, continue to the most dominant broadband ISP's? My answer- existing infrastructure and right of way. Can we have a fairer playing field please? 256 Kbps isn't exactly the fastest, I could do with 2-4 times more. I want to live my SecondLife minus the display hiccups and work from home.

* Worldwide, urbanization and Internet penetration are correlated. Countries of Western and northern Europe and US are more than 80% urban and penetration is close to 70%. I think this makes sense , with the much higher urban population density a good incentive for ISP's , especially broadband. With more than 50% of India's population continuing to be rural by 2025, more than 500 million rural people would live on the other side of the digital divide. Maybe Intel is right- WiMax is the way to go in India. After all, who is going to lay DSL cables in 0.5 million villages with fewer than 10,000 residents each?

*Add the fact that 40% of India is below 15 years of age, you get a closer picture of who you are designing your website for.

Next up , I will look at the split of young,urban internet users across different segments.