The country's total population is 1 billion and its consumer market is about a third of that, including an elite class of some 50 million who speak English. It also has a strong information-technology sector and improving Internet infrastructure. Registered online users currently number about 4 million, and that's projected to grow to 23 million in 2003, according to Nasscom. But the actual e-commerce market remains small. Even though India's consumers are hopping on the Net, they're not buying.
Online advertising is puny, too.
That's an awfully small pie to be fighting over, but the portals are here early to establish themselves and learn about the market. Reliable figures are difficult to come by, but Yahoo is seen as the leader among domestic and international sites. It has local pages for nearly 20 Indian cities and has made deals with about 40 Indian content companies to provide English-language material. They tried, for example, to promote e-commerce on Father's Day, an alien concept in India. But nearly all the U.S. portals ignored Rakhi, a traditional festival held last week in which a sister ties a ceremonial thread around her brother's wrist and he gives her gifts in return.