India overtakes the US as internet's second biggest user

The number of internet users in India is accelerating compared with a decelerating trend in the US and elsewhere globally, according to Mary Meeker's Internet Trends Report 2016. At 277 million, India's connected population is now greater than that of the US and second only to China.

While the number of users worldwide grew 7% in 2015, the same rate of growth as in 2014, in India, internet users grew four times at 40% in 2015, topping the 33% rise in 2014. This is despite smartphones are costing nearly 10% of annual per capita income in India, compared with 0.9% in Spain and 0.6% in Japan. In fact, now India alone adds 2 percentage points to the world's internet user growth, according to Meeker, partner at venture capital firm KPCB.