Smartphone Usage in India is Still Limited

Indian market has always been crucial for the handset manufacturers, all the big giants have left no stone unturned to enhance and market its product for getting substantial customer penetration.

Also for the 1st time Apple Inc made a fast move by providing iPhone 4S in India the very next month from its launch thus making it more clear that now even Apple don’t want to loose the market share in India to the growing Android plethora.

Fair enough but herein we won’t be going into a detailed discussion on ‘Android’ Vs ‘iOS’ phones one can hear it in every debate among tech geeks so let’s look on to the other aspect and that is “Are Smartphone users here utilizing the full potential of product?”

India and other 3rd world countries was a kingdom of Nokia but without innovation Nokis is loosing its reign. Samsung is trying hard to capture this market. Samsung launched Galaxy S II in India before the US launch, not only that Galaxy S II is sold in India at cheaper price than US.

Other handset manufacturers like HTC, Motorola and LG are also trying to win the Indian heart by launching low cost smartphones at below 10K price margin. Chinese OEM – ZTE and Huawei and other indigenous companies like Spice, HCL, Videocon, Olive, Micromax, Karbonn, Lava has launched low cost and ultra low cost Android based smartphones. It is sure that next few years smartphone market will be dominated by Android.

A recent survey done by us in four different cities on Smartphone users and usage patterns depicts quite contradicting to what was expected from the Indian market, like at the time of Android App store coming in, it was believed that Indian users will lead to maximum App downloads from Android store because it is the most free app storefront but that in fact never happened.

Following the points below depicts in brief the Story of Smart handheld devices among Indian users:

· An Indian user is still looking for bundled 3G tariff plans in the coming time to match the complete usability of the product and says their Smartphone usage is directly proportional to the Data plan they are with. “Phone manufacturers and App store owners please note”!

· In India at the time of buying a phone a person matches and looks for most available features but after 6-8 months down the line his interaction with the device limits to one or two applications, Social networking and peer to peer calling only.

· User centric Apps missing “Still the app stores are more or less the replicas from west and thus Indian App stores require more application suiting to Indian target market” for example one of the popular App in USA, tells the amount of calories one intakes while dining in their favourite eating spots like Mc Donald’s, now how many Indian user would have thought to check into this App while having a dine at Mc Donald’s? None!!! App makers in India has to make more India centric app like Traffic information, train time table and other day-to-day utilities.

· Still the new advents in Mobile arena like “MOBILE MONEY” at a very subliminal level which require a pace to reach end users with this kind of App with full functionality can be a Game changer.

Ganesh Srinivasan December 9, 2011 at 7:41 am

@Ganesh Srinivasan
I had stated earlier that one operator is likely to offer bundled freebies with full price buying of iPhone 4S

Aircel today [full page ads in Times of India] announced the bundled free offers

iPhone 4S 16 GB: 300 free minutes + 350 SMS + 500 MB 3G data + 1 GB WiFi data [all per month] amounting to Rs 18,000 freebies in first year – on the full price of Rs 45,000

iPhone 4S 32 GB: 350 free minutes + 450 SMS + 750 MB 3G data + 1 GB WiFi data [all per month] amounting to Rs 23,000 freebies in first year – on the full price of Rs 51,000

iPhone 4S 64 GB: 400 free minutes + 550 SMS + 1 GB 3G data + 1 GB WiFi data [all per month] amounting to Rs 27,000 freebies in first year – on the full price of Rs 58,000

a] So the bundled offer is started by Aircel and
b] the effective net price of iPhone 4S within 1 year becomes Rs 27,000 / Rs 28,000 / Rs 31,000 for 16 GB / 32 GB / 64 GB models – which in my opinion is a killer offer

Point to note is that Airtel also carries full page ads – but no mention of bundled free offers

kuni December 1, 2011 at 11:42 pm

@Amit Deb Biswas
haan woh toh h

Arka December 1, 2011 at 10:53 pm

I am totally agree with u,TT.

adi December 1, 2011 at 10:11 pm

mansoor Ahmed :
i think their are enough Smartphone user in india, but due to Data plans people are not using it or downloading content from the(andriod)market. If the Operator come up with data plans Such as 2 GB data at Rs 150 at 3G Speed or 4GB at Rs 200 at 3G Speed.
No body would like to use the 2G data plans which are horible slow for downloading and wait for long duration on mobile. Because if we are downloading any content from the market if you try to call to that customer who downloading any content,his number will be Busy.
So nobody like to lose the important feature of incoming calls instead of downloading content.

agree
+1

K@Zz December 1, 2011 at 8:03 pm

very nice case..

Ganesh Srinivasan December 1, 2011 at 6:37 pm

@Tushar Sharma
That’s precisely my point

The industry is rather mature enough now and will all the data available with them and with all the business intelligence IT tools available for analysis, spotting the trend and working out plans accordingly is not difficult at all

Someone told me that out of the two operators offering iPhone, one of them wanted to offer “less initial priced on contract plans” – but didn’t offer to maintain parity with the other operator. The buzz is that they will come out with contract based offers in December before Christmas / New Year

Amit Deb Biswas December 1, 2011 at 6:16 pm

@Tushar Sharma
thanks ; )

Amit Deb Biswas December 1, 2011 at 6:07 pm

@kuni
are baba, agar shaadi hota to 5k bhi pay nehi karna hota.. Girlfriend ki baap se free mil jata.. Lol

mansoor Ahmed December 1, 2011 at 5:21 pm

i think their are enough Smartphone user in india, but due to Data plans people are not using it or downloading content from the(andriod)market. If the Operator come up with data plans Such as 2 GB data at Rs 150 at 3G Speed or 4GB at Rs 200 at 3G Speed.

No body would like to use the 2G data plans which are horible slow for downloading and wait for long duration on mobile. Because if we are downloading any content from the market if you try to call to that customer who downloading any content,his number will be Busy.

So nobody like to lose the important feature of incoming calls instead of downloading content.

Tushar Sharma December 1, 2011 at 5:14 pm

@Ganesh Srinivasan

Its all in Operators court as in my study too…
A part of consumers were ready to get under contract with operators too quoting “Like the western countries if operator share the handset cost then who has the problem”. But this marketing strategy is kept aloof by the Indian operators, Indian Telecom operators are of the mindset that incase they provide Handsets under contract then ppl will take the phone for less and subside them …so it seems that prices will remain high for smart phone in India till Operators don’t take the necessary actions to implement it strategically into a Win Win venture for both sides!!!

Ganesh Srinivasan December 1, 2011 at 3:41 pm

I agree smart phone usage depends on bundled data plan

Why are we not getting phone for free / low price on contract for 2 years in India – like UK or few other countries – with bundled data and talk time plans?

India is the second largest mobile phone market in the world, by numbers and the growth rate has been tremendous

Barring a low % of migration through MNP, most have stayed on with the same operator [hence handsets can be very well locked with the operators] and hence is it time for mobile operators to offer low cost / free mobile phones with two year contracts.

This approach will definitely increase the penetration of smart phones

Tushar Sharma December 1, 2011 at 3:32 pm

@Amit Deb Biswas

Good one … thts my dream too!!