Even as India increasingly shines with its prowess in the information technology sector, adoption of broadband in the country still remains low. According to a report by Forrester, urban India has only a 3 per cent adoption rate among its top three socio-economic classes.
The report giving a perspective of broadband penetration and says that between now and 2015, consumer spending power in emerging economies like China and India will more than double from USD 4 trillion to USD 9 trillion nearly equivalent to the present spending power of Western Europe. This increased purchasing power will be fuelled by a billion consumers reaching middle class status in these countries who will increasingly depend on broadband for e-commerce and entertainment.
"India’s broadband penetration is very low. Despite efforts to roll out the infrastructure, urban India has only a 3 per cent adoption rate among its top three socio-economic classes (SEC)," the report highlighted.
Dwelling on how the poor penetration can be improved, Forrester has said that urban Indian consumers will seek out the web as soon as they have the right hardware. The report pointed out that as broadband infrastructure is slowly rolled out in urban India, more consumers in the top SECs will seek out devices with a balance between price and quality.
Companies like Lenovo and HP are in a prime position to strike this balance for consumers interested in PCs on a par with their Western counterparts, the report said.
It added that, limited-functionality offerings such as Nicholas Negroponte’s USD 100 computer will likely cater mainly to consumers in the lower income rural areas. "Once urban Indian consumers own the hardware, the connectivity will soon follow. To take advantage of this slow yet steadily growing online population, Microsoft should step in and aggressively advertise Windows Live to a market that hasn’t yet been conquered by Google," it noted.
