India records highest net user growth rate
The Economic Times, (Mumbai Bureau), August 3, 2000

INDIA has recorded the highest internet use growth rate in the Asia-Pacific region over the last one year, according to a recent study done by the Gartner group on internet-surfing behaviour among Indians.

The study put India the fifth largest internet-user market in Asia Pacific after China, Korea, Australia and Taiwan, with an estimated 3.1m regular surfers (defined as anybody who surfs for at least one hour per week).

The survey has thrown up some interesting points. Like, only 5.6 per cent of Indian surfers have ever placed orders on the net, of which 2.2 percent have paid online; the remaining have made offline payments.

Banner ads are not very successful and the click rate is only 0.74 per cent surfer per week. Almost 60 per cent of all surfers used cyber cafes to surf, while 30 per cent surfed from multiple locations, including home, office and cyber cafes.

CASTING A WIDE WEB
Survey estimates regular surfers in India at 3.1m
India is the fifth-largest market in Asia-Pacific
Only 5.6% surfers opt for e-commerce
Banner ad click rate 0.74% per surfer, per week
Nearly 60% of the netizens used cyber cafes to surf

The objective of the Gartner survey was to provide a scientific basis to business decisions that need to account for internet-user behaviour, including on-line media buying and marketing, creating on-line business models for India and the scope of services allied to the internet.

The survey, ended last week, covered a sample size of 3,000 families across all socio-economic segments from eight cities in the country. The second stage involved intensive interviews of over 1,260 internet surfers across the same segments and cities.

''Though the Indian market is very young, the study revealed that it resembled other markets in the world,'' said Lene Leskela, research director, e-Market Intelligence Service Asia-Pacific.

The $734m global business technology advisor is expected to come up with more research studies on India in next six months. ''More than 50 per cent surfers hooked onto the net for getting relevant information. Search options stood second on the wish list,'' said Mr Leskela. ''While download time came in as the fifth most important to surfers, site aesthetics came as the least important characteristics,'' he added.

Another important aspect of the study is that Indian surfers have rarely tried out 'new sites' (sites which the surfer has never visited before). ''Outdoor hoardings and banner ads were the least popular sources of awareness, and word-of-mouth is the best for spreading awareness on new sites, ''said Mr Leskela.

E-transactions are yet to pick up in the country. ''Among the transactions,the most popular product/service was movie-bookings which accounted for around 50 per cent. It was followed by placing orders for books, audio cassettes/disks and appliation/game softwares,'' said Mr Leskela.

While horizontal portals like Rediff, 123 India, Indianfo and Satyamoniline were the most popular sites for e-transactions, e-tail verticals like Fabmart and jaldi followed them. ''Company-owned portals hardly figured in the list of favourite portals for e-transactions,'' said Mr Leskela.