India's Internet Users Spiked in '05

Internet adoption continues to grow in India. Data released by Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) cite the cost of broadband; e-commerce and the demand for .in domain registrations among the factors for the increase in online users.

The number of Internet users reached 38.5 million by year-end 2005. That’s up a substantial 54 percent from 25 million in 2004. Broadband policy and other initiatives by the IT and Telecom Ministry encourage increased adoption. A monthly broadband subscription costs as little as 199 rupees (US $4.50).

A second and IT Telecom Ministry initiative is to make computers available for purchase under 10,000 rupees (US $226). In addition to working with hardware manufacturers to remove the financial barrier for households in India, the organization continues to push development of language fonts to remove language and localization of content issues.

Registrations under the “.in” domain surpasses 150,000. A statement from IAMAI says this, “reinforces the fact Indian expertise in hosting Root Servers are being well accepted, not only by Indian organizations, but also by the Root Server Operators of the U.S. and Europe, who have hosted Three Root Servers, F, K, and I, in India.”

Indians go online for a number of activities including email and IM (98 percent); job search (51 percent); banking (32 percent); bill payment (18 percent); stock trading (15 percent); and matrimonial search (15 percent).

The IAMAI is a trade association representing the online content and advertising, e-commerce and mobile content and advertising industry.