by Elton Gomes
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has recently predicted that as many as 650 million Indians will have access to the internet and more than 85 percent will have access to high-speed internet by 2023.
In a report titled Digital Lending – A USD one trillion opportunity over the next five years, the BCG estimated that more than 40 percent of mobile phone users in India will be using a smart phone, and 250 million new users will be added every year. The report said that internet plans by Reliance has led to the proliferation of internet access.
The Jio phenomenon has had a remarkable, two-fold impact in enabling internet access for Indians on the small screen. Firstly, high speed and reliable internet access has become almost become ubiquitous across the country. Secondly, the price of data has dropped by a staggering 97 per cent from Rs 200 per GB in April 2016 to about Rs six per GB now, the report said, as reported by Business Standard.
Echoing similar sentiments to the report by BCG, Google Indias vice-president, Rajan Anandan, claimed that India could have 650 million internet users by 2020. Anandan said, “From 10-15 million Daily Active Users (DAU) in 2011 to over 300 million DAU today, at the current pace of growth we expect the total number of internet users to be 650 million by 2020. It does not matter which industry you are from, your future consumer will be online and will be very, very active online,” as reported by Exchange4media. Anandan also noted that smartphone penetration in India had increased from 10 million smartphones in 2011 to 300 million in 2017.
Although this might spell good news for the Indian governments initiative to go digital, the ground reality seems bleak. While a majority of users access the internet on their phones, nearly 17 crore mobile phone users are still dependent on 2G. An average internet user uses 236 MB of data in a month and spends a total of 28 rupees on it. In order to grant internet access to 650 million Indians by 2020, the government will have to clear the roadblocks in disseminating internet across the country.
The truth about Digital India
A study conducted by Pew Research in 2017 revealed that only 25 percent of Indian adults use the internet. In other words, only 1 in 4 adults use the internet. Although Jio managed to attract new consumers, overall numbers remained low.
With only 17 percent internet penetration, a report by Deloitte India stated that internet penetration in rural India remains low due to challenges in deployment of fixed broadband networks. The report said that wireless networks will facilitate internet adoption for nearly 750 million users in India, who still do not use internet. Such wireless networks are necessary to ensure that India stays well connected and that all parts have smooth access to internet.
According to a 2017 IANS report, 56 percent of smartphone users have no access to the internet at least once a day. “We have found that across India, the connections are patchy and users often find gaps in network coverage depending on their location,” said Alex Suh, General Director at True Balance, the app that compiled the report.
Suh added, “This is why despite the mobile data usage in the country increasing significantly, there is still prevalence of users found experiencing offline state in a day. While the data connectivity issue has improved considerably since last year, there is still scope to address the main issues behind poor connectivity and get these numbers further down,” as per IANS.
To ensure that India is connected, the government needs to make sure that internet penetration reaches rural areas. The BharatNet project might be a step in the right direction, but adequate implementation is the need of the hour. Apart from this, India needs efficient infrastructure in the form of fiber optic links and servers to meet the increasing demand.
Elton Gomes is a staff writer at Qrius