Get 'em while they're hot

Over 28 million people in India, age 15 and older, accessed the 'net from home and work locations in May — a 27 percent increase from a year ago.

This makes India one of the fastest-growing internet populations, according to comScore's first study of internet usage in India, reports MarketingCharts.

Internet users in India account for only 3 percent of the population, indicating significant potential for continued strong growth.

"While global internet brands like Google and Yahoo currently reign as the most visited web properties in India, several local players also have strong positions in the market," said Jack Flanagan, comScore EVP.

Some of the findings from the study:

• On average, Indian internet users visited the internet 25 times during the month and were online for 28 minutes per visit.
• Those age 15-24 were the heaviest internet users among all age segments, spending nearly 12 hours online per month on average.
• The fastest-growing website categories in the past year included Maps (up 64 percent), Sports (up 60 percent), Entertainment - Movies (up 55 percent), and Finance - News/Research (up 52 percent).

India Website Rankings

Google Sites ranked as the top property in India with nearly 20 million visitors in May, a 35 percent increase versus a year ago.

Google grew on the strength of several Google-owned entities, including Google Search (up 38 percent to 17.1 million visitors), social-networking site Orkut (up 39 percent to 9.3 million visitors), blog platform Blogger.com (up 102 percent to 7.3 million visitors), and video site YouTube (up 131 percent to 6.3 million visitors).

Yahoo Sites ranked second with 18.7 million visitors (up 28 percent), followed by Microsoft Sites with 12 million (up 11 percent).

Indian portal Rediff.com ranked as the top local property with 9.2 million visitors (up 19 percent), followed by government site NIC.in with nearly 6 million visitors (up 5 percent).