IAMAI Report: 64 percent Internet Users from Rural India prefer Vernacular Language

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) on 9 January 2012 released the Vernacular Report 2012. The report described that a percentage of the rural people aware of the regional language content were higher than that of the Urban users.

The report also revealed the fact that there are 45 million users in India, who access content in local language. A total of about the 64 percent population (24.3 million users out of the total 38 million) of the rural internet users prefer internet in their vernacular language. In case of 84 million urban users, a total of 25 percent users’ access or browse net in local languages and it constitutes of about 20.9 million people.

The report also clears that the users of vernacular medium mostly used emails, search engines, news content, matrimonial services, online bank services and text chat. But the users from the rural areas concentrated towards sites that offers government services and maintain land records as well as private initiatives like eChoupal, the sites that helps farmers by providing aggregate information that suits their interests and provide facilities to sale their produce at farm.

The study was conducted by the e-Technology Group of the Indian Market Research Bureau and the IAMAI and it covered the top metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Pune, Hyderabad, Pune, twelve smaller cities, five non-metro towns and ten small towns.