According to a report titled ‘Online and Upcoming: The Internet’s impact on India’, by McKinsey, India will add more internet users than any country in the world over the next three years, as average penetration rises from 10% today to 28%.

Pic Courtsey: The Hindu

The report also added that internet generated 1.6% of the GDP or about $30 billion (in real purchasing power parity terms) in 2011 in India. The report also forecasted that Internet’s contribution to India’s GDP could treble to $100 billion by 2015.

According to the report, India will also have a unique feature-three out of four new users from India will be mobile-only users. Mobile-based Internet users will form 55% of the total user base in 2015 in India, compared to just 15% in other aspiring countries. India will be second only to China in terms of citizens using Internet by 2015, as more than 330 million Indians should be connected online by then. India has around 120 million internet users at present.

In May 2011, McKinsey, in another report titled ‘Internet matters: The Net’s sweeping impact on growth, jobs, and prosperity’, said that internet contributed 5 per cent to the total gross domestic product (GDP) growth of India in the past five years compared with the average 3 per cent for BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economies.

Besides, it is likely to create more jobs. With increased Internet penetration, 22 indirect jobs would be created by 2015. The report had said that the number of internet users goes up, the growth impact of the internet will improve significantly.