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| The most user friendly websites in India |
| June 5th, 2007 |
30 million internet users, 20 million online everyday
Internet usage in India continues to grow at a slow but steady pace, both in ‘spread’ and ‘depth’. If there are no visible signs of any sweeping or far-reaching growth on the horizon yet, there are no indications of any slowdown either.
The overall internet using population in urban India has grown by a healthy 28% between April 2006 and April 2007 to reach 30.32 million now.
Table 1: Growth in Internet Users in Urban India
| |
2007 |
2006 |
Growth |
| |
|
|
|
| Total internet using urban individuals |
30.32 mn |
23.60 mn |
28% |
| |
|
|
|
| Regular internet users (at least once a month) |
25.17 mn |
21.95 mn |
15% |
| |
|
|
|
| Occasional internet users (less than once a month) |
5.15 mn |
1.65 mn |
212% |
Of the total 30.32 million urban internet users, 25.17 million (83%) are the ‘regular’ users who log on at least once a month and the balance 5.15 million (17%) are the ‘occasional’ users who use the internet with a lesser frequency than that. From a practical point of view, 20 million internet users are on the net daily.
At 30.32 million, the penetration of Internet among the urban Indians stands at 9% now.
Growth got fuelled more by home-based usage this year
If last year’s growth was fuelled by the spread and increased usage from the cyber cafes, then this year’s growth has got driven by the increased usage of internet from homes. The usage of internet from homes has gone up +19% to reach 59%.
However, place of work (office, school, colleges, etc.) still continues to be the single largest place for accessing internet at 78% (up +16% over the last year’s figure of 63%).
The most disappointing phenomenon during this year has been the near stagnation of the cyber cafes as a place of accessing internet. Its usage has gone up only +1% to reach 47% this year.
An even bigger worry about the usage of internet from cyber café is the fact that only 1.4% of the regular internet using population is accessing the net ‘exclusively’ from a cyber café. This indicates that the relevance of cyber cafés is only ‘secondary’ in nature as of now. This could really throw the spanner in the wheel of rapid growth of internet usage in India, as in a country like India the large-scale (mass) accessibility and affordability of computer at self-ownership level may still be a long way away.
Broadband is reaching more and more online urban Indians
At least 3 out of 4 regular internet users (77%) who access the net from home now do so using some form of a broadband or superior connection. At least 74% of office-based usage is also on broadband or superior connections.
But despite the widespread usage of broadband, the biggest problem faced on the net (by at least 2 out of 3 net users) is the ‘slowness in opening of websites’. Almost 1 in 3 net users (35%) also complains about the ‘difficulty in connecting to the net’ in the first place. Therefore, it appears that a large part of the available broadband connectivity is not really true ‘high speed’ broadband connectivity in practice yet.
Net users are ‘heavier’ users of internet from home than of the other mediums
Internet users who access the net from home tend to be relatively ‘heavier’ users of the online medium as compared to the offline mediums (TV, newspaper and radio).
Table 2: Duration of Usage of Internet and Offline Mediums from Home
| |
Internet |
TV |
Newspaper |
Radio |
| |
|
|
|
|
| Light Users (less than 1 hr. a day) |
43% |
44% |
46% |
72% |
| Medium Users (1-2 hrs. a day |
35% |
43% |
41% |
19% |
| Heavy Users (more than 2 hrs. a day) |
22% |
13% |
14% |
10% |
Networking and Entertainment activities are the biggest gainers in popularity
Communication, networking and entertainment activities stand out as the more popular online activities. In the list of the 10 most popular online activities among the regular internet users, 5 fall in the domain of communication and networking activities (emailing, instant messaging, chatting, e-greetings and dating/friendship) and 4 of the balance 5 fall in the domain of entertainment activities (news, sports, music, and games).
Table 3: Popularity of Online Activities (Top 10))
| Rank% |
Online Activity |
% Undertaken in 2007 |
% Undertaken in 2006 |
Increase |
| 1 |
Emailing |
95% |
94% |
1% |
| 2 |
Job Search |
73% |
53% |
20% |
| 3 |
Instance Messaging |
62% |
37% |
25% |
| 4 |
Check News |
61% |
53% |
8% |
| 5 |
Online Music |
60% |
48% |
12% |
| 6 |
Chatting |
59% |
49% |
10% |
| 7 |
E-greetings |
58% |
57% |
1% |
| 8 |
Check Sports |
57% |
35% |
22% |
| 9 |
Online Games |
54% |
35% |
20% |
| 10 |
Dating/Friendship |
51% |
27% |
25% |
The ‘rise’ of (social) networking and the ‘hype’ around blogging
If we combine social and professional networking together, then 56% of all internet users undertake either or both of these networking activities. However, social networking forms the larger part of this pie with 29% of net users undertaking only social networking exclusively.
Blogging still remain only a ‘tertiary’ internet phenomenon, with only about 31% of all internet users involved in blogging.
While 27% of all online Indians read or check blogs, 15% of them comment on blogs and only 7% of them have a blog of their own. That is, in effect 89% of all net users who are involved with blogging only read blogs.
Yahoo is the most recalled online brand but Google is the most used
Yahoo once again emerges as the most top of mind recalled online brand of all with 30% of all online Indians recalling it as the first online brand coming to their minds. However, when it comes to actual usage it is Google which emerges the frontrunner with 29% of all internet users preferring to use Google the most among all the websites.
However, at the overall level it is neither Yahoo nor Google but Orkut which shows the best recall-to-usage conversion ratio of 1.76.
Table 4: Overall Popularity of Websites (Top 10)
| Rank |
Website |
Top of Mind Recall |
Website Usage |
Usage/ Recall Ratio |
| 1 |
Yahoo |
29.80% |
26.60% |
0.89 |
| 2 |
Google |
27.20% |
29.30% |
1.08 |
| 3 |
Rediff |
11.50% |
10.90% |
0.95 |
| 4 |
Orkut |
4.50% |
7.90% |
1.76 |
| 5 |
Gmail |
2.90% |
3.90% |
1.34 |
| 6 |
Hotmail |
1.60% |
1.50% |
0.94 |
| 7 |
Indiatimes |
1.00% |
0.90% |
0.90 |
| 8 |
Nakuri |
0.50% |
0.50% |
1.00 |
| 9 |
Sifi |
0.50% |
0.50% |
1.00 |
| 10 |
MSN |
0.50% |
0.40% |
0.80 |
In terms of specific online activities, both Yahoo and Google emerge as the most popularly used websites for 14 of the 23 popular online activities surveyed (7 each).
Table 5: Most Popular Websites for Specific Online Activities
| Online Activity |
Top Website |
%Prefer to Use |
YoY Increase |
| Emailing |
Yahoo |
53% |
16% |
| Instant Messaging |
Yahoo |
63% |
- |
| Info Search - English |
Google |
75% |
-2% |
| Info Search - Languages |
Google |
74% |
- |
| Job Search |
Nakuri |
37% |
-13% |
| Online Travel |
Makemytrip |
17% |
7% |
| Yatra |
16% |
16% |
| Online Shopping |
Ebay |
34% |
-4% |
| Online News |
Yahoo |
14% |
4% |
| NDTV |
12% |
-1% |
| Financial News & Info |
Google |
13% |
1% |
| Moneycontrol |
13% |
3% |
| Online Share Trading |
ICICI Direct |
36% |
- |
| Real Estate Info |
Google |
17% |
- |
| Magicbricks |
14% |
- |
| Matrimonial Search |
Bharatmatrimony |
29% |
-4% |
| Shaadi |
28% |
-5% |
| Dating/Friendship |
Orkut |
36% |
32% |
| Social Networking |
Orkut |
64% |
- |
| Online Games |
Yahoo |
18% |
-13% |
| Zapak |
17% |
17% |
| Mobile Content |
Yahoo |
14% |
-8% |
| Rediff |
12% |
-10% |
| Online Music |
Raaga |
22% |
5% |
| Sports Content |
Espnstar |
29% |
5% |
| Cinema Content |
Yahoo |
11% |
-2% |
| Astrology |
Yahoo |
22% |
-2% |
| Online Education |
Google |
34% |
- |
| Local Language Content |
Google |
12% |
- |
| Blog Site |
Google |
21% |
- |
To sum up, while the usage of Internet has shown a slow but steady growth in the last year, online buying, especially of travel products has shown a tremendous growth.
Further, internet continues to be the ‘melting pot’ of the big Indian middle ‘mass’ of urban consumers. However, the size of the pot itself is currently becoming the biggest limiting factor in the future growth of Internet usage in India. Accordingly, the call for breaking the barriers of both software limitations (content, especially language content) as well as hardware limitations (wider, speedier and affordable connectivity and access to the net) continues.
METHODOLOGY FOR INDIA ONLINE 2007
Land survey undertaken in April 2007. Sampled 10,000 households in 31 cities (of population sizes 20,000 plus) across all the four regions to estimate Internet user-ship and derive appropriate ‘weights’ to make online survey data representative of the entire online urban population.
A large-scale online survey conducted in May 2006. Sampled over 14,200 complete responses capturing net usage behavior and website preferences
Further details on the methodology of the study, evaluation criteria used, and calculation of the user-friendly index of websites can be checked out at www.juxtconsult.com . |
For more information on JuxtConsult, visit www.juxtconsult.com
For More Information on ‘India Online 2007’:
Contact: Nidhi Dewan
nidhi@juxtconsult.com
Ph: +91.9811973230 |
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