India overtakes Japan to third spot in internet community

India has overtaken Japan to emerge as the country with the world's third biggest internet population, with its internet use growing 31 per cent from the year before to 73.9 million users.

With the growth, India ranks behind only China and the US, which account for 348.2 million and 191.4 million users, respectively,  according to a ComScore report, India Digital Future in Focus 2013 released on Thursday. In terms of growth of online population India stood second only to Brazil, which posted a 37-per cent increase to 62.1 million.

"With an extended online universe in excess of 145 million, the market is at a tipping point for online businesses," said the report.

 Among the categories that registered the fastest growth was apparel, which led with an 85 per cent increase to 13.4 million unique visitors, followed by comparison shopping, which increased 52 per cent to 11.1 million unique visitors. Notably, the number of blog visitors rose nearly half to 35.9 million.

Users under 35 accounted for three quarters of India's online population, with males in that segment among the heaviest users along with women aged 35 to 44 years old.

Fifty-four million internet users in the country watched online videos on their computer, which represented a 27 per cent rise over the past year.

Asia-Pacific had 644 million home and work internet users as of March 2013, with China accounting for over a half at 54 per cent, followed by India (11.5 per cent), Japan (11.4 per cent), and Southeast Asia (9.6 per cent).

Non-PC traffic too has registered considerable growth, with mobile and tablet shares in India growing 14.2 per cent since last year. According to the report, handheld devices were now the preferred choice for many, especially those on-the-go. Updates on weather, blogs and entertainment were among the most important forms of information accessed on handheld devices.

Social networking continues to increase in India, with Facebook leading the charge, registering a 28 per cent rise in the number of visitors in the last 12 months, with the average user spending 217 minutes on Facebook every month.

Overall, 86 per cent of Indian internet users visited a social networking site, with LinkedIn taking the  number two spot, recording a 58 per cent growth year-on-year, while Orkut, Tumblr and Pinterest featuring among the top seven.