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some of the preferred activities on the internet, the studyreveals. The survey comprised of 3,100 children in 7–14years’ age group, from 26 cities.The The Indian Readership Survey, which studies massmediaconsumption data, indicates a 27.5% increase ininternet-based readership between beginning of 2012and third quarter of 2013. In the same period, only a slightgrowth was observed in printed newspaper readership(0.7%).An important result thrown up by Bowker’s study is thatfree content is a driver for ebook adoption in India. Overhalf the respondents to that survey had downloaded a freeebook in the six months prior to taking the survey.India is now the world’s third -largest internet user, afterthe US and China, according to a Comscore report releasedin August 2013. Of the internet users, 75% are below theage of 35. But the report observes that women in the agegroup of 35–44 years are among the heaviest users in theIndian market.Currently, much of econtent available in the country is inEnglish, a factor that restricts a large section of people fromusing the internet. Internet users in rural India show agreater preference for localized content. At least 64% ofinternet users in rural India use the internet in local languages.[N2] Email is the most popular service, while onlinenews and online banking in local languages are also becomingpopular. Great expectations anticipate that in thecoming years this pattern of consumption will give way touser-generated content in local languages.In the absence of more reliable data on ebook readershipin India, the patterns seen in consumption of eservices andecommerce give some clues for future opportunities.Technological infrastructureThe ratio of computer literates in India was estimated tobe 6.15% (224 million) of the population, last year. Thedigital divide in India is a result of several divides combined,namely a lack of access and affordability, poor infrastructure,and social inequalities.Internet penetration in India was at 12.6% in 2012. Accordingto the The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicatorsreport released by the Telecom Regulatory Authorityof India in August 2013, the number of internet subscribersin India was 164.81 million by March 2013 (it was150 million in December 2012). Of the total internet subscribers,15.05 million were broadband connections; 6.56million were narrowband connections; and a whopping143.20 million accessed the internet through mobilephones. (These numbers are based on connections registered,but are not indicative of active users.) When it comesto mobile telephony, the penetration level is greater in urbanIndia. In March 2013, of the total 867.80 million wirelesstelephone subscribers, 525.30 million were in urbancentres.While email is the most used service, 28% read news onlineand 25% users accessed apps. Online games were accessedby nearly 50% of mobile internet users. [N3] Butsocial media is steadily outstripping all other uses in urbancentres, as observed by the Comscore study cited above.India registered 73.5 million mobile handset sales for theperiod January–April 2013, registering a growth of 11.1%year-on-year, according to CyberMedia Research. Duringthe same period, 9.4 million smartphones were shipped inthe country, showing a growth of 167.3% on an annualbasis.The sale of tablet computers is rising, strengthening thedemand for variety of content. An estimated 3 million weresold in 2012, from 0.5 million in 2011, according to theresearch agency, which had predicted that 6 million wouldsell in 2013. The growth in shipments of tablets in Indiaregistered a 107.4 % year-on-year growth in the secondquarter of 2013. About 1.15 million tablets were sold in justthe second quarter of 2013 by as many as 70 domestic andinternational vendors, according to the research agency.Almost 80% of the tablet device models launched duringthis period were with both of 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity,leading to a growth of 103% in shipments of 3G tablets.Local brands are fiercely competing with global manufacturersfor a share in the tablet market. The Indian consumerhas no bias against local brands, perhaps because of theprice-sensitivity of the Indian market.It was only with the launch of Amazon’s Kindle India Storein August 2012 that a Kindle device (Kindle Wi-Fi 6”) wasavailable at an introductory price in India when the UScompany tied-up with the local Croma retail chain. Untilthen, Kindle devices, and perhaps a few Sony eReaders,were imported. Kobo will launch in India soon, and thecompany already identified a retail partner. [N4] Kobo’sentry is likely to create robust competition to the ereaderdevices segment.India’s preference for multi-feature devices that offer morevalue—over and above read-only devices like an ereader—is perhaps the reason for proliferation of low-cost and72 The Global eBook Report