New Delhi (TIP): A report by industry body Assocham along with independent research firm comScore said that among the Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) nations, India has been the fastest growing market adding over 18 million Internet users during the last one year.

The report said the Internet users’ base in the country is growing at an annual rate of 41 per cent to reach 124 million users in July. The time spent has increased by 33 per cent over the past one year with the user base spending 48 billion minutes online in a month. The consumption of content has grown to 70 billion pages a month from 54.6 billion pages in July 2011.

This is expected to be a continuing trend in coming years, given the age distribution in India. The top five popular categories accessed online are social networking, e-commerce portals, search, entertainment and news sites, the study titled ‘State of e-Commerce in India’ said. In comparison, China added over 14 million users to reach 336 million Internet users by July-end, followed by Russia and Brazil with 10 million and 3.1 million additions, respectively.
According to Assocham, the e-Commerce revenues in India will increase from $1.6 billion in 2012 to $ 8.8 billion in 2016.