India to have third-largest number of internet users by 2013: Forrester Research

Despite the global economic slowdown, worldwide use of the internet continues to grow, and by 2013, there will be 2.2 billion internet users in the world, with the third largest projected to be from India.

The number of people online around the world will grow more than 45 per cent to 2.2 billion users over the next five years, according to a new report by technology and market research firm Forrester Research.

Asia remains the biggest global internet growth engine with 43 per cent of the world's online population will be from this region by 2013. China is projected to have the largest internet population, followed by the US and India third.

In Asia, China's online population, already the largest in the world, will rise by nearly 11 per cent each year over the next half decade. Other Asian countries with substantial online growth rates include India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and the Philippines.

By contrast, growth rates in some of the more mature markets such as Japan and South Korea will rise by less than 2 per cent each year.

Growth rates in the US, Western Europe, and the major industrialized nations in Asia Pacific such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea will slow to between 1 per cent and 3 per cent, according to Forrester.