Download: Understanding the scale of change online audiences and digital media in India
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The growth of internet use in India is attracting the focus of global brands, as well as national firms looking for more effective ways to reach upmarket and professional audiences. As online commerce and internet audiences accelerate, the web is moving to the centre of the retail and information culture in key demographic groups.

To support our clients and partners we've collated together research that provides a snapshot of the online economy in India today, and there is a supporting online resources page.

Developing digital strategies for content, commerce and communications in India demands a strong understanding of the role the web, email and social media play in people's changing media mix. If you find the notes useful then add your comments in the supporting pages.

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Internet access growth started accelerating in 2002 and both the web and email have now mainstreamed as both a consumer and business tool. Use is skewed massively towards specific up-market demographics and professional classes that have access as part of their working lives. The twenty something professionals are graduating college with internet access part of their personal landscape so a clear cohort effect is in play – as this group ages they replace the older generation where internet access is more patchy and the behaviour, on the whole, less engrained. Email has become an important business tool for both domestic and international firms, and the ability to overcome the geographic challenges of such a large country have made it a quick replacement for fax services. However it’s not just about work, the web is proving itself as both an entertainment and business media platform with many strong entertainment sites in sport and news traceable back to origins in the mid nineties. The strong home-grown content industry in India, complemented by a strong IT sectors in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi have fuelled internet development. In terms of international access, there is strong use of UK and US websites as well as international sports websites.

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India is undergoing the switch to broadband before many people even experienced narrowband, but the pace is slow because of the challenges of the telecommunication infrastructure. India will be a broadband internet country and a wireless internet country eventually, but until 2011 it will be a slow process as the exchanges get upgraded and local businesses wrestle with connection challenges.

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The internet advertising industry remains young in India and behaves in a similar way to the Western European internet advertising industry 5-8 years earlier. The sector is dominated by financial services, IT/mobile and recruitment, with consumer package goods and motoring accounting for only small shares of the national online advertising market. However Indian consumers have experienced web advertising from the start of their use of the web so there is greater acceptance than in some of the Western European markets at a similar stage in their growth. The market is nationally driven with extra campaigns coming from global brands, but most of the budget confined to national businesses. However, negative perceptions about advertising remain and on the whole national media have been sluggish to provide online services comparable in quality to those in the UK and USA.

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Email and information remain the strongest reasons people go online in India, but the use of video has grown rapidly in the past few years and will continue to do so, following trends from Western Europe. National broadcasters as well as the BBC and YouTube have all been early beneficiaries of online video viewing from India. The role of social media is growing rapidly with over 60m people having profiles on social networking sites. This will accelerate through to 2012 by which time internet access should have broadened and social media become a standard element of web use with the vast majority of regular users having at least one social media profile. Blogging and RSS use also prove to be significantly high at present; this will continue, but relative to other tools, blogging’s share of voice will decline throughout to 2010.

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