Cyber cafes: their commercial viability in a metro and non-metro city in India

Abstract

Internet provides a powerful medium for communication. Since 1995, it became available to the Indian public commonly. Cyber cafes came into existence in large metro cities, initially to cater to the needs of well-off sections of society for sending and receiving electronic mail. They were supposed to be good small businesses in those times. With the fall of computer prices in recent years and simultaneous fall of hourly charges nobody knows what has happened to the viability of cyber cafes as a business proposition. Internet has now been proved to be a very powerful technology for the welfare of common man. Successful and expanding projects like e-choupal prove that it can serve common villagers of India. Government of India is promoting Community Information centres (CICs) in North-Eastern states as internet kiosks, one in each block. They are providing free Internet services to the community. The CIC model, even though owned by the government at the moment, has been planned to become commercially viable in the next five years. They are functionally similar to cyber cafes, except for their ownership structure. Therefore it is interesting to learn how commercially viable the cyber cafes are. The cyber cafes as business propositions are differently positioned in metro and non metro cities. Therefore it is curious to know what bundling of services can be offered by a cyber cafe to improve its viability in variegated settings. Cyber cafes are serving an existing demand. Their owners and customers are to be understood in their respective settings. What the cyber cafe is offering and how much the customer is satisfied? What customers in metro and non-metro expect? These are questions whose answers will determine the future of cyber cafes as business propositions. The viability question hinges, apart from its innate financial calculations, on customer-keeping effort on the part of the cyber cafe.