MUMBAI: The worldwide online population has crossed over one billion for the first time, fuelled by Asia's highly-populous developing nations, notably China, India and Indonesia.
A report published by the US-based research and consulting firm eTForecasts reveals that internet adoption in these three Asian countries is rapidly increasing.
"Much of future internet user growth is coming from countries such as China, India, Brazil, Russia and Indonesia. These countries will also see strong growth of wireless web usage, and for many new internet users the cellphone will be their only internet access device," says report author Dr. Egil Juliussen.
As per the report, China has become the world's second most populous internet nation, with 20 million new users going online last year. The total number of Chinese surfers reached almost 120 million last year. The study has also revealed that Chinese surfers are also more likely to be on broadband connections than their US counterparts.