India may have had a little trouble warming to the internet, but new research shows this is all about to change courtesy of huge growth in its number of web users.
In 2011, the number of Indians using the internet was at just 125 million. However, a new report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) claims this figure will nearly triple to reach 330 million by 2016.
The researchers said this rise in adoption will increase the influence that digital technology has on people’s purchase decisions, reports indiatimes.com.
For instance, according a survey of 25,000 consumers from BCG, 40 per cent of India’s 90 million urban internet users claim online activities like product research and price comparison will have an impact on what they buy. This is for both online and offline purchases, spanning across 101 different product categories.
BCG claimed comparing prices was particularly important in categories like appliances and consumer electronics, so firms offering these types of goods may wish to review the rates that pass through their online payment processing services.
According to BCG partner and report co-author Arvind Subramanian, a third of consumers that purchase products from this market will rely on the internet for research or price comparison.
Cited by indianinfoline.com, the study also revealed that Indian men are more likely to be users of the internet than Indian women (32 per cent vs 12 per cent) and over three times more likely to be influenced by information found online (14 per cent vs 4 per cent).
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