India #4 cyber nation & other internet stats

Check this report from internetworldstats.com. It has ranked India at #4 behind US, China and Japan.

Clearly leading the way is US where users obviously are riding on the heavy infrastructural base that exists. From my experience of being there, anything and everything could be done or found how to be done on the internet. The extent to which internet has pervaded common life is only something that can be experienced - the report says it is 68%. Any small outlet is likely to have its own website which is maintained on a regular basis too! e-business takes place at astonishingly high levels, so much that when people from other parts of the world land up in US, their wariness takes a beating.

Next comes China - I was frankly surprised by the internet usage base in China - a whopping 111 million users. Clearly double that of India - 50.6 million users. I was half expecting some European country to rank #2 or atleast Japan. Japan comes a close #3 with 86.3 million users. With India taking the 4th position, Germany slips down to 5th position with a close 48.7 million people. That rounds up the top 5.

There are several other reports and stats that interested me.

1. Asia accounts for 36% of worldwide internet usage.


2. India increased its user base by 914% between 2000 and 2005.


3. English is the most spoken language on the internet - 30.6%, followed by (I least imagined them to be ranked so high!) Chinese and Japanese respectively.


4. While India can claim for the 4th biggest user base, it may not be able to hold that record for long. Because the penetration % is a paltry 4.5%. Germany, that is close to us in internet usage, has a penetration % of 59% and therefore more likely to race ahead of India in short span of time.


5. Broadband is the way to go in the times to come. However India ranks nowhere in the DSL usage. The report is dated - published in 2004 Q4. India has made massive strides since then. It should India start getting listed somewhere better than being unlisted.


6. Check out the top 10 reports. Each of them holds interesting statistics. For instance: Microsoft owns the largest number of internet domains and has the second biggest brand presence on the internet. Sweden has the maximum internet penetration with 73.6%, followed by Hong Kong at 70.7% and Denmark with 68.7%. US is 4th with 68.5%. & surprise of surprises, IBM - which is the biggest IT company in the world - does not have a presence in the top 10 in any of the stats mentioned there.

There is something called as the internet traffic report. Very interesting. Check it out. Click on Asia specific report, India seems to have 0% packet loss. That indeed surprises me. Click on the Mumbai router and check out the traffic pattern in the first plot. India does nod off to sleep between 1AM and 4AM. :-)

& finally, before I close out this post - check this : The Living Internet. Check out the information grid on the first page and start going clickety-click! You will never know what you were missing! :-)