BENGALURU: With increased 4G and 3G penetration, the internet user base in India is rapidly growing and is expected to double to 600 million users by 2020 from the current 343 million, said a study.
Going forward, rural adoption of data-enabled devices is expected to increase with the BharatNet initiative under the Digital India drive, according to the study conducted jointly by the Associated Chambers of Commerce (Assocham) and Deloitte.
The joint study said the Internet user base in India has reached over 27 per cent penetration compared to 50.3 per cent in China.
India is the second largest mobile phone market globally, with over 1 billion mobile subscriptions. Of this, smartphone users account for 240 million subscriptions, which is expected to grow to 520 million by 2020, it said. Spectrum availability in Indian metros is about a tenth of the same in cities in the developed countries. This has put a major roadblock in providing high-speed data services. Public Wi-Fi penetration remains low. "Globally, there is one Wi-Fi hotspot for every 150 citizens. For India to reach that level, over 8 million hotspots are required”.