India on Way to Topping US in Internet Users

India on Way to Topping US in Internet Users

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This is the VOA Special English Technology Report

India could pass the United States in the number of Internet users in less than two years. A new report says India reached one hundred twelve million users in September.

India is the third largest Internet market after China and the United States. China reported four hundred eighty-five million Internet users in June, and there are two hundred forty-five million in the United States.

The Internet and Mobile Association of India says Internet growth was especially strong among people in smaller towns and cities.

There was also a large increase in Internet use among school-aged children and college students. This is partly because of the growing number of e-learning services and educational websites.

Subho Roy is president of the Internet and Mobile Association of India. He says another big change this year is that more and more people are using the Internet from home, and not just at cyber cafes or offices.

 "People are probably buying their own broadband connections and accessing it from their own devices rather than going to common service points."

This growth in Internet use has also led, not surprisingly, to an increase in online businesses.

 Deepinder Goyal owns Zomato.com. His website provides information about restaurants and nightlife activities across India. Mr. Goyal got the idea for Zomato while working at a consulting firm three years ago.

 He and his coworkers kept restaurant menus in their office so they could order lunch from different places.

"We scanned these menu cards and put them online. So starting an Internet venture was actually an experiment and it worked out really well, and currently we are getting around two million people just looking up menu cards on our website every month."

 Zomato now provides information on more than seventeen thousand restaurants across India. It covers areas from the Dehli national capital region to Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai.

Deepinder Goyal says Zomato used to depend mostly on business people going online at work, often to order lunch. But now, with the rise in home use, "weekends are also very heavy traffic for us."

In a separate report, GSMA, the global trade group for the mobile industry, says Africa is the world's fastest growing mobile phone market. Africa has the second largest number of mobile phone connections after Asia.

For VOA Special English, I'm Alex Villarreal.