New Delhi: Facebook, Twitter might be flavour of the season, but email remains more popular than social media as a method of internet communication for Indians, says a survey.
According to global research firm Ipsos, 68 percent of people across India, who are connected online, send and receive emails while about 60 percent communicate via social networking sites.
“Internet penetration in India has been very good in recent years, however, relative to country like China, India still does lack behind,” Biswarup Banerjee, Head of Marketing & Communications, Ipsos in India said.
The Indian trend of communicating online is largely similar to the global scenario. Reuters
Only 25 percent use voice-over IP (VOIP) for audio conversations conducted via an internet connection. The Indian trend of communicating online is largely similar to the global scenario, as a strong majority (85 percent) of online-connected global citizens in 24 countries use the internet for emails. Globally, 60 percent use it for social networking, and little over one in ten use the Internet for connecting with people through voice-over IP.
According to industry estimates, 103.6 million people will go online in 2012, and the number of users is expected to more than double to 221.6 million by 2015.
“This along with proliferation of internet access through smart phone will further increase the usage of email, social networking sites and other online communication tools,” said Banerjee.
Incidentally, according to another Ipsos survey, around 40 million Indians access the Internet through their smart phones, 56 percent of smartphone users in the country access the Internet multiple times a day. Nearly 40 percent surf the net at least once a day and only 6 percent never use their
phone for connecting to the Web.
Internet users in Hungary (94 per cent) are most likely to say they use the web for emailing, followed by nine in ten of those in Sweden (92 per cent), Belgium (91 per cent), Indonesia (91 per cent), Argentina (90 per cent) and Poland
(90 per cent).
Meanwhile, 83 percent of Indonesians access the net for social media, in Argentina the figure stands at 76 percent, Russia (75 percent) and seven in ten of those in South Africa (73 percent), Sweden (72 percent), Spain (71 percent) and Hungary (70 percent).
PTI
