Has the Mobile Web Overtaken Desktop in India?

In August, mobile web usage overtook desktop usage, according to data from internet measurement company StatCounter. Mobile accounted for 51.63 per cent of web usage over the month.

That makes India an outlier in Asia. Turkmenistan is nearly there – with desktop holding a slim majority of 50.2 per cent over the period - but otherwise, this is very much the exception. Of the neighbouring countries, only Bangladesh, where 34.6 per cent of web usage comes from mobile, is even comparable. In China, for example, the mobile web only has a 5.4 per cent share.

You can view an interactive map of mobile and desktop web usage in Asia below.

Meanwhile, an I-Cube report on the internet habits of rural India, put together by the IAMAI and IMRB, has found that the number mobile web users has grown more than sevenfold since 2010, up to a total 3.6m.

It also shows that, in rural areas, the mobile web only accounts for 12 per cent of internet usage.

Either India's urban centres are accounting for a huge proportion of mobile web usage, or there's some discrepancy between the two sources. It's worth noting, though, that back in March deskop still held a pronounced lead in web usage (60.9 per cent), according to StatCounter.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Mobile vs. Desktop Market Share