(Image source from: Business Today)

India is overcoming every country in internet adoption trends and has secured a new record of spending the highest amount of time on social media in the world.

As per McKinsey's latest report on Indian online trends, there are an estimated 560 million internet subscribers in India as of September 2018. And that number's expected to increase significantly by 2025.

The report shows statistics comparing India and China as the two nations leading the online charge, where internet penetration still has a long way to go.

Indians spend more time on social media than online users in China or the United States. Indians spend about 17 hours per week on social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others. Reportedly the secret behind securing this new world record is due to access to cheap Android smartphones and 4G cellular data.

Besides, Indians are also just behind China when it comes to app downloads on phones - 12.3 billion apps downloaded by Indians in 2018, reveals a report from 2018.

After Indonesia, India is the second fastest in the world when it comes adopting digital technologies nationwide which is a huge achievement, given India's huge population and language complexities compared to Indonesia.

The report is extremely optimistic about India's digital appetite and individual online growth and wraps up concluding that empowering digital businesses and new online initiatives is fundamental to continuing India's success story as a digitally connected nation.

According to an estimation in 2018, there was around 326 million social network users in India, an increase from close to 168 million in 2016. The most popular social networks that Indians prefer most to use are YouTube and Facebook, followed by instant messaging application WhatsApp. Facebook is projected to reach close to 319 million users in India by 2021.

By Sowmya Sangam