StormShadow
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In Maharashtra, India....a group of farmers surf the web. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt believes India internet growth will rival and then surpass that of China within a decade
When it comes to internet users, China is all now, but India is going to be bigger in the long run, said Eric Schmidt, Googles chairman.
This place is going to be rocking, Schmidt said. He is currently in Mumbai for Googles Big Tent Forum. In the short term it is China, but math favors India. And Im a mathematician, Schmidt said when asked by Guardians Editor-in-Chief Alan Rusbridger on his choice for growth markets: India or China.
The Economic Times reported on the exchange between the Google chairman and the media on Thursday.
Schmidt commented on the growing number of mobile users in India, surfing the web on a day-to-day basis from their smart phones. There are roughly 600 million mobile phone users in India, there are about 130 million Internet users, but there are only about 20 million broadband users. So by any definition India is under-penetrated. And in our book we talk a lot about the importance of the next 5 billion, said Schmidt.
There are only two billion people on line in the world today. And many of those five billion would be coming from India. So imagine a situation five to 10 years from now. When there is a billion people on the Internet. Will they be significantly different from the first 100 million users. Im sure there will be many more languages and they wont be so English focused.
India is the poorest of the big four emerging markets. As incomes rise, however, more locals are expected to buy computers and low cost smart phones. For now, despite the numbers, poverty remains a problem in India and internet access is a luxury the vast majority of Indians cannot afford. In 2010, only 7.5% of the population had access to an internet connection. It rose to 10.05% in 2011, according to the World Bank.
By comparison, much richer China has an internet penetration rate of around 39%. Brazil is around 45% and Russia internet users as a percentage of the population is slightly above 50%.
Google Exec Sees India Bigger, Badder Than China - Forbes