Thursday, February 4, 2016

India internet users increase advantage

India now has the second highest number of Internet users in the world. The number of Internet users in India is roughly around 400 million(40 crore). In the last few years the number of Internet users in India increased at a very fast rate. It took over 10 years for the number of Internet users in India to go up from 10 million to a hundred million. 

It took about 3 years for the numbers to go up from 10 million to 20 million however in less than one year the number has increased from 30 million to 40 million.  In last one year the growth in the number of Internet users has been a mind boggling 49%. 

The major reason for increase in the number of Internet users is affordable smart phones. Also the sight of more people using Internet has increased the awareness about the opportunities Internet provides. In the West such growth in Internet usage happened during the late 1990s to early 2000s. However in case of India and South Asia, it is happening now. 

Next year one can safely assume that the number of Internet users will jump up to 500million. The e-commerce sites are reaping in the advantage of increase in the number of Internet users in India. Sites like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Homeshoppe18 etc are reaping the advantage of this boom. A portal called Rediff.com started way back in the early 2000s. It was also listed in NASDAQ. It offered a host of services from news to selling goods. However Flipkart and other e-commerce sites that started much later did way better than it.

Before smartphones came existence. It was predicted that in the future most Internet users will access the net through mobile phones which double up as computers. The term used back then was mobuters. The same mobuters are here for a few years, only that we call it with a different name. We use the term smartphone. 

Indeed the prediction did become a reality. Most Internet users today access Internet via mobile devices like smartphones, tablets etc. Very soon the city of Delhi will provide access to free WiFi to all its citizens. The use of Internet will revolutionise the lives of people. Digital divide is going to be a thing of the past. 

Using Internet farmers can sell their products directly to the consumer. Specially in a country like India which has a huge number of small farmers. The middlemen procure agricultural produce from the farmer at low rates, they create huge stockpile of it, which leads to an artificial shortage. This results in increase in prices of the product. In the last few years we have seen in India how the prices of onions and tomatoes shot up by a factor of 4 to 5 times. 

The traders had procured this vegetables from farmers at low rates. In Maharashtra onions were even procured at ₹1 per kilo and in off season this onions were sold in the market for a price as high as ₹80. This exploitation of farmers of India at the hands of unscrupulous farmers can stop if the farmers start using the Internet and sell their produce directly to the consumer either individually or by forming co-operatives. 

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