Email more popular than social networking in India

New Delhi: Facebook, Twitter might be flavour of the season, nevertheless email remains more popular than social media as a method of Internet communication for Indians, says a survey.

According to global technology firm Ipsos, 68 per cent of people across India, who are connected online, send and receive emails during about 60 per cent communicate via social networking sites.

"Internet penetration in India has been very good in recent years, but, relative to country like China, India on the whole does lack behind," Biswarup Banerjee, Head of Marketing & Communications, Ipsos in India said.

The Indian trend of communicating online is largely similar to the global scenario, as a strong majority of online-connected global citizens in 24 countries use the internet for emails. Globally, 60 per cent use it for social networking, and little over one in ten use the internet for connecting with people through voice-over IP.

The usage of email

"This along with proliferation of internet access through smart phone will furthermore increase the usage of email, social networking sites and other online communication tools," said Banerjee.

Incidentally, according to another Ipsos survey, around 40 million Indians access the Internet through their smart phones, 56 per cent of smartphone users in the country access the Internet multiple times a day. Near 40 per cent surf the net anyway once a day and only 6 per cent never use their phone for connecting to the Web.

The web for emailing

Internet users in Hungary are most likely to say they use the web for emailing, followed by nine in ten of those in Sweden, Belgium, Indonesia, Argentina and Poland.

"Though Facebook and other popular social networking sites, blogs and forums, were founded in the United States the percentage of users was lower at six in 10, and in Japan it fell to 35 per cent, the lowest of the 24 countries in the global survey," added Banerjee.