The number of online shoppers is growing faster than the growth of the Internet in India. The number of Indians shopping online grew 42% in the year 2005, compared to the 22% growth in the number of Internet users. Roughly one fourth of the total user base i.e. 5.9 million internet users, did online shopping last year to spend an estimated $0.8 billion (Rs. 4000 crore). Approximately, 66% online buyers shop from home and account for more than half (56%) of the total online spend in India. 59% of the internet users came from middle-to-low income group, and about half were from outside the top eight cities, signaling that the Internet is now becoming a mass medium in India. More than 40% Internet users preferred an Indian language website. Cyber cafes were the access point for 46% users.

The mobile value added services (MVAS) industry has reached the level of $105 million (Rs. 500 crore). The MVAS market is expected to grow 10 times to reach $1.05 billion (Rs. 5,000 crore) by 2010. MVAS industry has clocked 100% year-on-year growth for the last two years, and the phase of high growth may continue for next five years. India’s number one private television network STAR commands biggest 25% share of the SMS-based infotainment services, while Sony Entertainment, a venture of U.S.-based Sony Pictures Entertainment in India, Mauj Telecom, India’s leading Telecom solutions company and New Delhi Television (NDTV), India’s largest private producer and broadcaster of news, current affairs and entertainment programs are the other major players in the segment. The value added services are currently providing about 10% of the total revenue of telecom operators.

About 56% of Indian mobile subscribers now own a web-enabled handset, but hardly use it for web browsing. Only 1% of the mobile subscribers having a web-enabled handset actually use it for web browsing. Consumers in India engage in text messaging only and have not yet adopted mobile web browsing. Japan has the highest penetration of web-enabled phones as well as mobile internet usage with 76% people having web-enabled phones. Out of these 76% people, 40% use their handsets to surf the net.

Exports of Indian IT services and IT-enabled services (ITeS) have grown 33% to reach $23.6 billion during 2005-06 (FY06), up from $17.7 billion in FY05. Of the total exports in 2005-06, IT software and services grew by 33% to $17.3 billion, while exports of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry grew 37% to $6.3 billion. By the end of the financial year 2006-07 exports of software and services will increase to $21-$22 billion, while BPO exports will touch $8-$8.5 billion. The overall growth of the industry, including both exports and the domestic market, registered a 31% increase to reach $29.6 billion, up from $22.5 billion in 2004-05.

Telecom service providers in India posted revenue of about $19.5 billion (Rs. 879.62 billion) in the financial year 2005-06, a growth of 30% compared to $15 billion (Rs. 675.23 billion) of FY 2004-05. The private sector companies contributed about 85% of the total growth of $4.5 billion (Rs. 201.69 billion) in FY 2005-06, but narrowly missed overtaking the public sector companies i.e. the government owned companies. Public sector companies had revenue of $9.86 (Rs. 443.71 billion) while private sector companies generated revenue of $9.68 billion (Rs. 435.91 billion), missing the target by just $173 million (Rs. 7.80 billion).

With a growth rate of 9%, and revenue of $8.77 billion (Rs. 395 billion), government-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) remained the top service provider. Its closest competitor Bharti Airtel brought in $2.6 billion (Rs. 116.63 billion), growing at 46%. Reliance Communication grew at 109% to clock revenue of $2.5 billion (Rs. 112.88 billion) and become India‘s third biggest telecom service provider.

As far as the number of mobile subscribers is concerned, India is now placed at the fifth position on the global list. China with 404 million subscribers, U.S. with 185 million subscribers, Japan with 150 million and Russia with 140 million mobile subscribers are the other countries ahead of India. India recently crossed the 100-million milestone when operators added close to 4.2 million new mobile subscribers in May 2006. Germany, Italy, the U.K. and Brazil are the countries behind India in the top-10 list. In terms of percentage growth rate, India is the fastest growing market, and in terms of absolute numbers, India is the second fastest with 4 million new subscribers being added every month on an average.

More than 15 million handsets have been sold in the last three months, which is more than the number of subscribers added during the period.

India’s bio-tech sector is growing at 37.42% and inched closer to $1.5 billion in revenue during 2005-06. The bio-pharma segment still dominates this sector with $1 billion in revenue. The Indian bio-tech sector is likely to generate more than a million jobs in agriculture, pharmaceutical and medical segments by 2010.

India is expected to reach the magic figure of 500 million phone subscribers by 2010 and the target is quite achievable.

The current subscribers’ base in the country is 150 million including 100 million mobile phone subscribers. The target for 2007, which has already been announced earlier, is 250 million new phone connections. Mobile phone companies added 4.25 million new subscribers to reach the subscriber base of 101.17 million. On the other hand, the fixed line subscriber base shrunk by 0.11 million to finish at 47.40 million.

Rs. 12,000 crore, or $2.6 billion: that is the estimated size of Indian advertising across all media. Online advertising including classifieds is a small chunk of this, only $88 million (Rs. 400 crore), but growing at a rapid pace. Have you started thinking about naukri.com, India’s leading job search portal, which plans to bring its IPO shortly? Actually Jobs-advertisement is one segment where online advertising moved ahead of print ads. While the online job-ads market is estimated at $44.4 million (Rs. 200 crore), print ads for jobs command only a market of $22.2 million (Rs. 100 crore).

Well, don’t even think of comparing these figures with the U.S. advertising market, which is expected to reach $150 billion in 2006.

The overall Personal Computers shipment grew at 30% to cross 4.6 million units, in the year 2005-06. Interestingly, as a trend-reversal, consumer desktops grew at 33% compared to 15% growth in commercial desktops. Total Desktop PCs sales grew 21%, while Notebook PCs shot up by 168%.

The Indian information technology-enabled services (ITeS) industry is poised to touch $10 billion by 2006-07 and $26 billion by 2009-10. Corporates are expected to continue outsourcing many of their labour-intensive business process service tasks to developing countries like India to gain cost savings and quality advantages. The demand growth in the ITeS industry is likely to be export-led, with the domestic market also expected to grow at a rate in excess of 50%. However, lack of good infrastructure is the biggest challenge which the ITeS industry in India is facing.