Women Deprived of Internet in India, Study Shows

Internet adoption remains low across Southern Asia, which is home to the world’s largest unconnected population.

A new report suggests that the women in India make up the majority of unconnected populations.

(Photo: PTI)

Although 13 percent of the world's internet users live in India, a new report suggests that the majority of the country's unconnected population is women.

Women are deprived of internet services across the country – a pattern that was observed in 2020 as well.

The Digital 2021 April Global Statshot Report – published in partnership between Hootsuite and We Are Social – further adds that more than 1 billion people remain unconnected across just three countries in the region – India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan – that makes up the majority of the unconnected population.

Internet Adoption Around the World

Internet adoption remains relatively low across Southern Asia, which is home to the world’s largest population deprived of internet services.

While the Internet adoption has doubled since 2010, there are still more than 700 million users in India who are not connected to the internet. An analysis by Digital Global Statshot reveals that women make up the majority of these unconnected populations.

China, takes the second place with over 600 million people not connected to the internet. According to Visual Capitalist, 39 percent of the country's population was living in rural areas in 2019. Below are the number of users from different countries deprived of internet services.

Increase in Social Media Users in India

The data reveals that there were 448 million social media users in India in January 2021, and that the number of social media users in the country has significantly increased by 78 million between 2020 and 2021.

This means more than 32.3 percent of India's population is active on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Instagram. Here are the number of social media users from 2015 to 2021.

Which Apps Do Indians Use the Most?

Video-streaming platform YouTube is the most popular platform in 2021. More than 85 percent of India's Internet users consume content on YouTube.

Followed by Facebook, which is used by 75 percent of the Indians. While WhatsApp stands on the third position in popularity in India.

However, WhatsApp has retained its first position globally, despite facing backlash from millions of users due to its controversial privacy policy updates.

What Do Indians Buy The Most?

Indians spent more than $35 billion on travel mobility and accommodation on e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal.

Electronic gadgets seem to be the second favourite item to buy online. More than $14 billion was spent on electronic gadgets and physical media in 202, while video games contributed only 500 million to the e-commerce platforms.

Use of Voice Searches in India

Globally, around 47 percent of internet users aged 16 to 64 said that they used voice commands or voice search on any device in the past month, but that figure is almost 60 percent in India.

Nearly 50 percent of the younger internet users in India below 35 said that they’ve used voice interfaces in the past 30 days. The majority of voice searches take place on smartphone.

The rise of audio searches show that India is a fertile market for audio-based platforms.