Out of 650 million users online, 70% will be video audience by 2020: Google report

The number of online users in India will grow to 650 million in one year time, according to the latest Google report.

The internet usage and growth will be majorly driven by non-metro cities, which are fastly catching up with metros.

It will be primarily leading in three verticals including voice, vernacular, and video. About two in every three searches are coming from cities beyond top six metros and there has been ten-time growth in local languages searches, outlined Google's 'Year in Search - India: Insights for Brands' report.

In a year time, the audience for online videos is poised to touch 500 million, added the report. The growing influence of online video, will also create opportunities and return of investments (ROI) for marketers and brands.

Every year, close to 40 million people are joining internet bandwagon.

More than 80% of car buyers have watched online video to gather info and make purchase decisions.

People in smaller towns are also using the internet to search for information related to insurance, education, beauty and travel more than metros, the report said.

Online consumer spending is expected to grow 2.5 times to $100 billion by 2020. This will be led by growth in e-commerce, travel and hotel, financial services and digital media. The online spender base will grow more than double to reach 180-200M in a year.

For online education, the paid user base will grow 6x from 1.6 million users to 9.6 million users.

The report further said that industries are beginning to embrace the benefits of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) across categories.