The number of smartphone users in urban India will cross 104 million in 2014 compared to 51 million users in 2013, according to Deloitte report. The company has predicted that the smartphone users are expected to drive the highest video consumption on mobile.
“The consumers are increasingly becoming screen agnostic and are viewing video content on their smartphones both inside and outside the home,” the company said at the Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) meet in India in 2014.
“In 2014 mobile video is likely to be the preferred service over other mobile value added services,” says PN Sudarshan, Senior Director, Deloitte in India.
“We anticipate 50-60 percent of all the mobile data consumption in India to be driven by video over next 2-3 years,” he said.
With improved networks and connectivity, users will increasingly consume higher resolution video. While pre-downloaded and side-loaded form of video will continue to be a major part of the overall video consumption on mobile, Deloitte envisages emergence of innovative business models in mobile video streaming/time-restricted download space in 2014.
On the other hand, instant messaging (MIM) services on mobile phones may win the battle for volume in 2014, but Short Messaging Service (SMS) will be victorious in revenue terms. Deloitte predicts that in 2014, MIMs will be more than twice the volume of messages sent via a SMS.
However, despite the burgeoning volumes of MIMs, we expect SMS to generate more than $100 billion globally in 2014, equivalent to approximately 50 times the total revenues from all MIM services. This might be slightly different in India as operators have reduced low cost SMS plans due to regulatory changes; resulting in subscribers using other means to communicate.
Plus, local language content will be crucial in 2014. Deloitte predicts that India would witness a surge in the development of local language applications and localization of content.
Additionally any increase in mobile data and internet subscriber base would be achieved among the section of the population whose digital accessibility is limited by language constraints.
