India to have 130 million mobile Internet users by March 2014

India will have 130.6 million mobile internet users by March 2014 according to the Mobile Internet Report by Internet and Mobile Association of India [IAMAI] and IMRB. In December 2012, this number was 87.1 Million mobile internet users.

According to the report, in October 2012, there were 78.7 million mobile users who had accessed internet in the last one month, which include Laptop with dongles, tablet, dongles that connects to Internet. Of this number, there are 61 million Off-Deck Users (accessing sites other than sites of the operator), 15 million On-Deck Users (accessing only sites specified by the operator) and the rest 2.7 million users accessed the internet using dongles (i.e. connected to Internet using 2G, 3G or high-speed data cards).

The report further finds that an average monthly bill of a user who access Internet on mobile devices is Rs. 460. Of which, the user spends Rs. 198 towards Internet expenses. This is a very healthy trend as it shows willingness of the users to spend nearly 40 percent of the bill towards Internet access. The rest is spent on voice services.

Email, social networking services (SNS) and messengers have high usage among mobile internet user. Accessing online videos, games or reading online news are done approximately 2-6 times a week. While online games are accessed by nearly 50% of the Mobile Internet users, less than 30% of users read online news and watch online videos.