According to the Vernacular Report published by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and the Indian Market Research Bureau, about 45 million people use the internet in their local languages.
As of December 2012, the country had 122 million active internet users, of which, 45 million subscribers used the internet in local languages for news, matrimonial services or online banking. As per the report, amongst the various internet-based services used, e-mail was the most popular application, with about 94 per cent users accessing this service in a vernacular language.
According to the 2001 census, about 769 million people in India speak the top 10 local languages, namely Hindi, Bengali, Telegu, Tamil, Urdu, Oriya and Punjabi. The report underlines that these numbers suggest that there is a huge potential for growth of local language content and regional content developed by companies could revolutionise the internet market in the country.
As per the findings of the report, about 64 per cent of rural customers have utilised the internet in a local language, compared to only 25 per cent of urban internet users. The usage pattern demonstrates that a higher proportion of the rural population is aware of vernacular language content in comparison to urban users. This is primarily due to the availability of a large number of internet services including government services and land record services in local languages. However, despite the encouraging growth of internet usage, internet penetration still remains low. The IAMAI-IMRB report attributes this to three major factors: lack of infrastructure (in the absence of PCs and internet connection), beliefs (internet-based applications are unnecessary) and the lack of knowledge (no or low awareness about the benefits of the internet).
