With 81 m Net users, India gets 4th slot

INDIA has been ranked fourth among the top 10 nations in the world with 81 million Internet users. United States leads the chart with 220 million Internet users followed by China (210 million) and Japan (88.1 m). Brazil comes next to India with 53.1 million users, UK 40.2 million, Germany 39.1 million, Republic of Korea 35.5 million, Italy 32 million and France 31.5 million.
    The Internet Governance Forum has released these statistics on the eve of its third four-day global conference that begins at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre on December 3.
    From about 70 million people (1.7% of the world population) who had access to the Internet at the end of 2007, the figure crossed 134.8 crore by 2007. Asia has the highest number of Internet users with an estimated 568.7 million people followed by the Americas with 377.9 million.
Europe ranks third in this list with 335.9 million users and Africa and Oceania close the rank with 51.8 million and 14 million users respectively, according to the IGF. India, however, does not find place among the top ten nations in terms of broadband connections where too the US stands first with 73.2 million connections.
    China has 66.4 million, Japan 28.28 million, Germany 19.6 million, UK 15.6 million, France 15.5 million, Republic of Korea 14. 7 million, Italy 10.8 million, Canada 9 million and Spain 8 million broadband connections. While there were a total of 13.5 million Internet subscribers in India, representing 1.15 per 100 people, broadband subscribers accounted for five million among them.

    However, the number of users, who have online access but do not themselves subscribe, is a whopping 81 million or 6.93 users per people. 

Search engine marketers look to double business by 2010

Google’s decision to stop giving commission to the agencies in the UK — 3-11 per cent of the digital campaign value — from January 1, 2009, may double the revenue of search engine marketing (SEM) companies in India, as agencies consider offshoring to maintain margins.
An IAMAI (Internet and Mobile Association of India) and IMRB (Indian Market Research Bureau) report pegs the total market revenue of the SEM industry in India at around Rs 500 crore in 2007-08. This is expected to increase to around Rs 1,000 crore by 2009-2010.
Viral Thakkar, director-sourcing advisory services, KPMG, says: “ Google’s move will push outsourcing and India will gain, as it has the cost advantage and availability of required skills.”
SEM spends exceed that of the TV in the UK, and a similar pattern is expected to emerge in other parts of the world. One third of the SEM revenue in India is contributed by domestic clients, while the rest by international ones.
There has been a decrease in the management of in-house organic SEO (search engine optimisation). In 2006, 84 per cent of SEO was managed in-house, while in 2007 it dropped to 79 per cent. Advertisers are now hiring SEM agencies to optimise their website so that it comes up in the first few searches.
Rising cost per click is also leading to increased outsourcing. In the increasing cost environment, advertising agencies are supposed to move more work to India. Typically, 30-100 projects per year are undertaken by SEM outsourcing organisations.
According to a 2007 I-Cube report, of the 250 million urban populace, 77 million speak English. Around 20 per cent of the business of Communicate 2 comes from offshore activities.
Compared to the Philippines, South Africa and China major competitors to India in outsourcing, SEM business is higher for India. The Indian workforce’s endorsements from Google helps.
Indian SEM companies earn bigger revenues from outsourcing. Thakkar of KPMG says: “Profit earned on domestic billing is just one-fourth of global client billing.”
Attracting talent is a big challenge. Lack of awareness of the opportunities in the field is the biggest challenge facing the industry. Professionals could make great careers in SEM, but many are not aware of SEM as a career option. Vivek Bhargava, MD, Communicate 2, says: “I think the SEM salary would be 2-3 times higher.”

BSNL to roll out IPTV in 98 cities by November

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, or BSNL, the state-run telco that is India's largest by revenue,
plans to use franchisees to roll out its IPTV, or Internet protocol television services, across 98 cities by the
end of November as it tries to grow this business even as demand for alternative ways of receiving
television signals increases.
BSNL has already appointed five franchisees: Aksh Optifibre, Smart Digivision Pvt Ltd, IOL Broadband
Ltd, Times Broadband Ltd and Maharashtra Knowledge Company Ltd (MKCL).
Apart from BSNL, which has already launched its IPTV services in some parts of the country, Bharti Airtel
Ltd and Reliance Communications Ltd, the country's largest and second largest mobile telephony firms by
customers are also preparing to launch IPTV services.
"The IPTV roll-out is being done on a private-public partnership (PPP) model and three franchisees are to
be allowed in each city after 4-5 months (of the launch by BSNL), depending on the potential of the area
of operation. We have done three commercial launches in Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Kukas, a small village
30km away from Jaipur city," said Anil Jain, deputy director general (broadband), BSNL.
Jain added that the company expected to serve 150,000 customers by March. "For the IPTV to take off,
there should be some differentiating factor for the users to subscribe to the service," said Kunal Bajaj,
managing director of consultant BDA Connect Pvt. Ltd. "The compelling factor will be interactive features
and value-added services."