India Online
India is a unique country, a young country with a population numbers in the billions (somewhere over 1.2 billion) and young with over 51 per cent of the total population being under 35.
It is no surprise then that India has over 164.81 million Internet users. Around 66 million of these users come from urban areas spread across various metros. Some 97 per cent of them are on Facebook. One-third of India’s social media users live in towns with a population of less than 5 million; 25 per cent of the total users live in towns with less than 2 million inhabitants. (Internet and Mobile Association of India, IAMAI)
Social Networking in India
There has been a strong social media adoption in India in the past few years as celebrities, business organizations, government organizations and even political parties are now actively utilizing various social networking sites to reach the people.
75 per cent of Indians who are active internet users use social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest etc. Majority of the people use social networking sites for interacting with friends, relatives, colleagues and community, live chat, updating status and images – as well as video-sharing. Indians spend close to 30 minutes every day online on different social networking sites.
Facebook continues to be the leading social networking site in India. In fact, the number of monthly active users of Facebook in India has shot up by 5 per cent to 82 million for this year’s April-June period up from 78 million in the January-March period. Along with the youth, there has also been an increase in women in the age group of 25 to 40 joining Facebook. Women are using social networking sites mainly for researching for family and child related issues and to connect with peers over the same.
Twitter saw a surge in users when Bollywood superstars, cricket stars and politicians signed up for the service. This surge continues as people are now finding their own unique uses of the service, right from using it as an outlet for expressing outrage against the government to using it as a device for social good by helping people get in touch with necessary resources during natural disasters and terror attacks. India’s Twitter community was extremely active during the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and managed to keep the world informed about the situation here.
Increasing the Indian Twitter population: Bollywood Stars (Picture Credit: impawards.com)
While Facebook is seen as the fun social networking site and Twitter as a source of news and a mouthpiece for expressing opinions, yet another networking site is gaining immense popularity in India – LinkedIn. LinkedIn has been growing steadily ever since it launched in India and today boasts of 20 million active users. LinkedIn is used extensively for exploring job opportunities and connecting with peers.
LinkedIn is steadily growing in India (Picture Credit: http://thetechpanda.com/linkedin-india-crosses-20-million-users-in-india/#.UiM-Sz8yMls)
However, what took everyone by surprise was the popularity of Pinterest in India. From a little over a hundred thousand users last year, the online pin-board has taken a massive leap to over 5.55 million users. Many Indian Social Media experts believe that this sudden rise is a result of bloggers and Twitter users keen on sampling the service. How many of these users are still active, is not yet known. A fate somewhat similar to Google+ which happens to be yet another popular site in terms of registration but the level of activity is nowhere close to that on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
Pinterest is growing fast in India
Online video consumption and YouTube
The biggest change, however, has been seen in the video consumption patterns in India on Google sites like YouTube and other sits that support video. ConScore reports that the total online video consumption has doubled in the past two years to 3.7 billion videos per month.
The total online video audience in India has grown 74 per cent to 54 million viewers, with the average viewer watching 18 per cent more videos and spending 28 per cent more time viewing. This rapid online video growth we’re witnessing in India represents a significant opportunity for both marketers and media companies in India.
The Mobile Revolution
What’s interesting about the Indian social media landscape is that it is getting a major push upwards thanks to the ever increasing mobile connections. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the total number of mobile connections in India in April 2013 was 897 million.
Social Media usage via mobile is soon catching up as more than 143.2 million people are now accessing the internet on their mobile handsets. According to IAMAI, 77 per cent of Indian Social Media users use mobile for social media. Mobile users use their phones and tabs excessively for checking emails, accessing social networking sites, searching, downloading apps and using chat/IM services on a daily basis.
Mobile revolution: 143.2 million people are now accessing the internet on their mobile handsets and counting (Picture Credits: ft.com)
E-commerce in India
E-commerce is one of the fastest growing sectors in India. The India E-commerce market primarily comprises of 5 major segments being online travel, retail, financial services, digital downloads and ‘other’ services. Online travel and retail have a cumulative share of more than 85 per cent.
Gartner research says that about 50 per cent of web sales will come via social media by 2015. Also 40 per cent of India’s urban internet users say that online activities such as product research and price comparison influence what they buy. The Next Web recently reported that 67 per cent of Indian e-commerce came from mobile devices.
Some interesting facts
• 13 million Indians are registered on matrimonial match sites
• Orkut is still a popular social networking site in India with over 28 million users
• Games are the most popular activity on Facebook in India
• Users log an average of 72 minutes per day using apps on their smart-phones
• Every day over 8 million inbound and 12 billion outbound messages are sent via Whatsapp
(Source: Tech In Asia)
