The Rise Of India’s Digital Consumers

ComScore recently reported its study on India’s digital scene, presenting the second most populous country in the world as the fastest growing online market globally in the last 12 months. The four fastest growing digital markets are without a doubt Brazil, Russia, India, and China. While China has the most number of monthly unique visitors of 336 million as of July 2012, India experienced the greatest growth. There were 18.1 million more online users in India in 2012 than there were in 2011, which represents a whopping 41% growth. Even though India only has a 10% online penetration with 124 million internet users, its explosive growth is one to watch out for.

ComScore also reported that 75% of India’s Internet audience are under 35 years of age, making it one of the youngest online population. The highest growth within the country is also seen amongst the 15-24 age bracket for both the male and female segments.

Unprecedented growth in gaming, social networks, search, news and travel in India surpasses the worldwide average. Online gaming saw 60% year-on-year growth and social networks followed behind with a 43% growth. Facebook was also the second most visited site in India this year.

While Google rules in India, Facebook saw the most engagement. The once popular Orkut has now fallen behind Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook, having emerged as the market leader in the social network category, has seen 47% growth within a year. Socialbakers ranked India as the third largest nation in terms of the number of Facebook users. Local brands like Tata Docomo are riding on Facebook’s popularity in India, evident from the high engagement and number of fans they see on their page. Tata Docomo is cleverly connecting with its audience through their shared culture – be it Bollywood, national festivals or Cricket – increasing the brand’s portrayed image.

We shared the top performing Facebook pages in India for July recently, where we also noted that there were 2 million new additions to the platform for the month of July 2012 alone. Watch out for this figure to grow even more by end of 2012 as internet penetration and usage of feature phones continue to rise in the Desi land.