India's rural-urban mobile ownership gap is worse than Bangladesh

India has nearly one billion phone users and yet there is a wide gap between the ownership of mobiles in the country, according to report published on India Today.

According to a report by a Sri Lanka-based think tank LIRNEasia, the gap between rural and urban mobile ownership in India is as high as 22 per cent.

This parity between the mobile ownership in India is more than the divide existing in the neighbouring developing nations including Pakistan and Bangladesh.

While the parity in mobile ownership in Pakistan stands at mere five per cent, the gap in Bangladesh stands a little higher at seven per cent.

The study pointed out that the 55 per cent basic phone owners in the country have no Internet connectivity.

In addition to this, out of the total number of people surveyed, there were about 28 per cent smartphones and 16 per cent feature phone users in the country.

Besides this, the study also revealed that while 65 per cent Indians in the age group of 15 to 65 years were not aware about the Internet, nearly 81 per cent people claim that they have never used it.