Mobile handset market in India

Mobile handset market in India to witness tremendous growth in next 5 years

The Indian mobile handset market is expected to continue its upward trajectory if a recent report by Frost and Sullivan is to be believed. The report continues to portray the happy sentiments in the mobile industry in the country.

India has reached the coveted position of the second largest mobile handset market in the world after China. And it is expected to become even bigger with 208.4 million phones being shipped by 2016 at a CAGR of 11.4% between the period of 2010 – 2016.

For people who were wondering whether the 2G scam resulted in the destruction of small scale players, Frost and Sullivan thinks that, there would be a threefold increase in the number of telecom participants by next year. In short, as of last year India had about 68 mobile handset players, and if the report is to be believed it will go above 200 !

This would result in further competition and squeezing of profit margins; though I personally wonder on the survival ability of these operators without proper infrastructure and network towers. Operators like Etisalat, Videocon, Uninor have struggled in every way to stamp their authority in the Indian market.

Another interesting part of the survey is the increasing use of smartphones by the Indian consumer. While the revenues in the urban areas are reaching saturation point, many mobile manufacturers like Micromax, Karbonn etc. have started manufacturing phones for the rural and semi–urban areas too. These phones are replete with all the basic features along with special features like insect repellant’s etc.

As was thought and has been discussed threadbare, the proliferation of Web 2.0 and Internet surfing is expected to rise across the country with the increase in use of smartphones.

This is the reason the mobile handset market expects the revenue to rise from US $255 billion to US $350 billion. The smartphone market is expected to grow tenfold to 30 Million units by 2016 from just about Rs 2.9 million units currently.

Another important analysis of the survey is the fact that more than 70% of the Indian population still consumes only voice services. But with the onset of 3G and cheaper data usage options, this is expected to change in the near future.

desi languages get more users

Online ads in desi languages get more users: Survey

 

Online publicity seems to be going the desi way, with advertisements in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and other regional languages attracting more internet users than English ones, says a survey.

According to survey by Ozone Media, internet advertising network and online advertisements in regional languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam outperform English creatives.

Moreover, resident Indians respond better to regional language ads as compared to English ads, by almost 30 per cent.

“Internet media, like Television and Radio is moving towards being a mass media. This is exhibited through the high response that language ads generate compared to English ads.

Consumption of regional language ad signifies the emerging trend in online marketing campaigns of the kind of spread and specific targeting brands adopt to reach their desired audience.

The survey titled - One Media Performance Users Study (OPUS) — noted that Tamil and Telugu in particular are driving conversions in language specific advertising across ad categories for performance campaigns.

The report reveals prolific usage of language ads by Banking, Finance, Services and Insurance (BFSI) and matrimony sectors.

For Matrimony category, non resident Indian’s (NRI) respond better to regional language ads whereas resident Indians respond better to English creatives.

In BFSI category however, the results are completely different from the matrimony category. NRIs’ prefer English language creatives over language based creatives as they would be most comfortable with English as a medium for addressing their financial needs.

The Survey said resident Indians feel more comfortable in one’s own language when it comes to simplifying any financial product that they wish to invest in or avail of. This trait possibly results in greater acceptance of language based ads for the BFSI category.

The survey is based on an analysis of close to 1,000 campaigns that were run on the Ozone Media network from January 2010 to December 2010. The sample includes responses from resident Indian and NRI across various ad categories.

Spice Popkorn

Spice Popkorn : Value for money projector phone!

The craze for projector phones is anything but over. If you are following world cup closely then you might have come across a strange yet good advertisement for a Spice phone. Called as Spice Popkorn, this phone provides a project option of which there are multiple use cases as shown in the advertisement. The least of it is project a flower on a girl. All the other use cases are bound to make your life a living hell. But there are some very good uses of the phone. Ad folks have to be creative to get paid. You just don’t have to be that creative.

Spice PopKorn TV Commercial

Spice M-9000 is a dual SIM phone with a in-built projector. It also comes with a analogous TV which will help you stream free-to-air channels, you know like the good old Doordarshan. There is a document viewer, in case you want to project a presentation on the side wall in the middle of a Christopher Nolan movie.

Spice M-9000 aka Popkorn, has a 3.2 megapixel camera, FM with recording, Bluetooth, video player and a 6 cm QVGA screen. All of this comes at a measly price of Rs. 6999.

There were two other projector phones launched. One by Intex and one by Techberry. Both the phones are priced in the 12K-16K range. At 7000 rupees,  Popkorn is the cheapest projector phone out there and looks like real value for money.