Political parties ad spend likely to be Rs 800 crores

As per a story in ET, the ad spend by Indian political parties in the recent elections is pegged at around Rs 800 crores. Mind you, this is just the ad spend in media – doesnt include other costs like campaigning, travelling etc. etc..

Cant help but say WTF !!!

If only a fraction of this wealth could be used for really worthwhile causes……

State of the Internet in India

Akamai recently released their latest State of the Internet quarterly report (last quarter 2008).

Here’re the stats related to state of Internet in India:

% of Attack Traffic originating from India: 1.16%

Number of unique IP addresses: 2,629,923

Unique IP’s per capita: <0.01

Average Internet speed: 772 KBps

% above 5MBPS connections : 0.6%

% above 2 MBPS connections: 3.7%

% below 256 KBPS: 26%

As you can see below, the stats havent changed significantly as compared to the last figures reported in the 2nd quarter 2008.

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28% of Indian mobile users accessed the Internet

While reading a story on digital marketing in India, came across a few interesting bits:

• As per a study conducted by Nokia India and TNS India, Indian mobile users accessed Internet for 2.4 day a week as compared to 2.7 days a week via a PC
• 28% accessed Internet as compared to 26% via PC’s
• Internet advertising in India grew by 45%  in 2008 to touch Rs 363 crores (1.7% of the advertising pie)
• Internet advertising in India is projected to grow at 25% in 2009

via Livemint

Indian entrepreneurs confidence index

As per a perception study done by KPMG and TiE, ‘”Entrepreneurial India”, the Indian entrepreneurial community is pretty optimistic about entrepreneurship in India. On a scale of 1 (lowest) – 5 (highest), entrepreneurs have rated India at a 3.31.  At a state level, Andra Pradesh received the highest rating of 4.14.

The study comprised of a survey of about 1000 entrepreneurs to evaluate their perception of the ecosystem across various factors like finance, government issues, infrastructure, manpower issues etc.  Finance, Infrastructure, followed by manpower emerged as the three most important factors for fostering entrepreneurship.

via here

Incidentally, there’s another document out there, but I’m guessing its an earlier version of the same study.

India has 81 million Internet users

As per figures released by the Internet Governance Forum, which meets at Hyderabad on Dec 3rd, India has 81 million Internet users. India ranks fourth in the world in terms of Internet users and US, with 220 million Internet users, tops the world.  China, with 210 million users, comes in a close second.

It seems that estimating the number of Internet users in India is pretty much like using a magic 8 ball. Shake the ball and chances are that every other time, you might just get a different number. Yipee !!

via ET

India had 2.6 million Internet connections in 3rd Quarter

Akamai released its ‘State of the Internet’ quarterly report, which indicates that India had 2.6 IP addresses in Q3, registering a 23% growth.

Key highlights of the report:

• India ranked No. 20 in terms of number of observed IP addresses with 2.6 million connections. In Q3, the growth in IP addresses was 23%
• In comparison, China had 38 million and Unites States had 109 million unique IPs, while being ranked at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively
• India ranks a low No. 153 in terms of number of IP addresses per capita, with 2.3 unique IPs per thousand people
• In comparison, China had 30 unique IPs per thousand people and United States had 360 unique IPs per thousand people, while being ranked at No. 94 and No. 6 respectively
• The percentage of Internet connections from India with speeds above 256 Kbps was at 74%, indicating gradual shift from dial-up speeds to high speed connectivity
• The percentage of Internet connections from India with speeds above 2 Mbps was at 5%, growing 16% compared to Q2
• In comparison, China had 4.3% connections above 2 Mbps and United States had 64% connections above 2 Mbps
• India ranked 12th in terms of global attack traffic origination in Q3, contributing 1.6% to observed global attack traffic – last quarter India was ranked at 15th

You can read the entire report here.

Mumbai tops eBay India traffic

eBay India has launched a Census guide for India. As part of the effort, they’ve launched a mashup listing the top Indian cities that drive traffic to eBay India remixed with data for that city. For instance, Mumbai was the top traffic driver to eBay India and the top items sold were Diamonds, handsets, USB MP3 players, stamps etc.

 

USB Drives emerged as the top selling item on eBay India. IT hubs of AP, Kerala, Maharashtra, TN and Karnataka were the most wired states with the maximum number of towns where Indian ecommerce originates.

via ET

India accounts for 2nd largest traffic for LinkedIn

I always knew that LinkedIn was popular in India because a lot of my LinkedIn contacts (from India) always seemed hyper active — making new connections, updating profiles etc.

But I was surprised when I found that India actually accounts for the 2nd highest traffic to LinkedIn just behind US.  Take a look for yourself:

 

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Metrics for Online Gaming sites in India

Here’re some metrics for online gaming sites in India:

Reach: 27.4%

Total Unique Visitors: 8,295,000

Average minutes per visitor: 45.4

Average visits per visitor: 4.3

India ranks lowest in terms of popularity of online gaming websites in the APAC region. Additionally the ‘average visits per visitor’ metric also seems to indicate that number of “repeat visitors” is incredibly low as compared other APAC countries.

via release

Comscore releases India Internet usage numbers

Comscore has released numbers related to the Indian Internet usage for May 2008. As per the report:

• 28 million users in the age group 15 & older accessed Internet from home – work locations
• This indicates a 27% jump in the Internet usage from last year 
• India has one of the fastest growing Internet populations among the countries listed in the comScore world Metrix service
• The 28 million still represents only 3% of the population leaving room for tremendous growth (I’ve talked about this before)

Some additional bits from the report:

• Average Indian visitor is online 25 times a month with each visit averaging 28 minutes
• Users in the 15-24 age group spent 12 hours online and are the heaviest users
• Fastest growing web site categories include Map (64%), sports (60%), movies (55%), finance & news (52%)

The network of Google sites ranked highest in terms of visitors with nearly 20 million visitors.

• Orkut had 9.3 million visitors (up by 39%)
• Blogger had 7.3 million visitors (up 102%)
• YouTube had 6.3 million visitors (up 131 %)

Only 6 of the top 15 sites are indigenous websites.

Read the release here.

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