The Economic Times of India heralded the news as a 100 million opportunity for investors, e-commerce, devices and telephony.    As soon as the announcement was made people started to query the number.

IAMAI (Internet and Mobile Association of India) stated that the100 million thresholds were crossed in November of 2011, while Internet Stats India says this happened in December of 2010.  Needless to say, the difference between 100 million or 120 million does not matter.   It is the growth that counts and the huge potential to lock in a 200 to 300 million strong middle class market, which is greater than the US and Europe combined.

Indian E-commerce: Travel Shows the Way:  Internet without transactions means nothing.  That was a decade ago when the dot com business went bust.   Since those early experiments, E-commerce growth in India has been slow, but it is beginning to take off with travel showing the way.  The Indian Railways portal, which was started in 2002, books 400,000 tickets per day with revenues of Crore 765 (US$ 145 million).

Devices will continue to be low cost, but high on frills.  Phones and tablets seem to be the future.

Telecommunications: Mobile Internet could be the savior for the telephone companies facing a decline in the voice business.

Investors:  The good news is that valuations are correcting although it is still a complex and tough space to crack

Source: The Economic Times (India) 2011-12-15