Indians increasingly want more from their phones than just being able to make and receive calls, going by the estimation that the country’s smartphone sales will cross 80 million units this year, according to a yet-to-be released Nielsen India report.
The report states that narrowing price differences and the wide array of features as the reasons for the projected brisk sales.
And what’s more, experts believe these volumes will grow making India the market with the highest smartphone growth rate, surpassing even China.
“There is a huge potential despite data prices going up. Higher usage and more subscribers will bring down the cost,” says NK Goyal, a telecom analayst with the think tank Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).
The average Indian spends around two hours and 45 minutes per day on their smartphone. This is one of the highest usage statistics globally. Users in the US, for instance, spend two hours and 27 minutes in comparison, according to the report.
The study segmented smart phone users based on data usage habits into three groups – heavy, medium and light. While the top 33% and the bottom 33% constitute heavy and light users, respectively, the remaining have been considered medium users.
Globally, mobile internet users are also heavy consumers of Wi-Fi. But, In India this is not necessarily the case. While Indian telecom super consumers still use Wi-Fi, usage patterns indicate their preference for mobile internet.
The study segmented smart phone users based on data usage habits into three groups – heavy, medium and light. While the top 33% and the bottom 33% constitute heavy and light users, respectively, the remaining have been considered medium users.
Globally, mobile internet users are also heavy consumers of Wi-Fi. But, In India this is not necessarily the case. While Indian telecom super consumers still use Wi-Fi, usage patterns indicate their preference for mobile internet.
Nielsen in its report states that there is a distinct correlation between the type of phone used and data usage patterns. Easy navigation and advanced operating systems (OS) enable frequent app downloads and media consumption, contributing to increased data consumption. Super consumers seem to favour the Android OS, while users of the Symbian OS largely finds takers among light users.