I found this excellent stats on mobile phone usage in India by  Arun Prabhudesai on his blog Trak.in. I have summarized the main points in my post, you can read the full report here.

- India’s mobile subscribers base at the end of April 2009 has grown to 403.66 million (source: TRAI).

- India adds 10 – 12 million subscribers on an average monthly.

- The near-saturated urban India has 270 million mobile subscribers.

How is urban India using their mobile phones?

SOCIAL NETWORKING:

- Almost 10% of Delhi mobile subscribers use social networking services from their mobile phones topping the list, followed by Mumbai (6.4%) and Chennai (4%).

- Orkut is the favorite social networking site frequented by approximately 11.4% of mobile users, followed by Facebook used by 6.7% and hi5 by 6%.

SEARCH ENGINE:

- Approximately 5.76 million mobile subscribers use Google, making it the most used search engine to be accessed via mobile. The second position goes to Yahoo used by 4.58 million mobile users.

- Almost half (45.6%) urban mobile subscribers use Google followed by Yahoo (30.9%).

INSTANT MESSAGING:

- Yahoo Messenger is the most used IM application among Indians. Almost 18.3% use Yahoo and 17.8% use Google Talk. (not much difference)

MOBILE CONTESTS:

- 86% of mobile users have participated in SMS contests initiated by TV shows followed by 50% participating in newspaper SMS contests.

- Almost 60% of females and 49% of males have participated in at least 1 – 3 SMS contests and 51% of males and 41% of females have participated in more than 4. (very high numbers)

SMS SERVICES:

- The most popular SMS service appears to be jokes (accessed by 52%) and astrology (used by 48%). News updates are subscribed by 44% of mobile users (quite encouraging).

- Unlimited Internet access & SMS value added services are the two most critical factors when Indians decide on choosing their mobile service.

It appears that in India, mobile Internet is going to grow!!!

Techtree reports India’s mobile subscriber base 391.76 million, despite the push, the growth in the rural sectors is slow. With a subscriber base of 282 million, urban centers account for 72% of all mobile users in the country. (Thanks @Sri for the link)

This article reports that Hindustan Times, a major Indian newspaper is changing it’s look and reporting style to cater to India’s youth population.

Sanjoy Narayan, editor-in-chief, HT, “Relationship and the people’s approach to consumption of news has changed. They get news faster from television, Internet, mobile phones (through SMS alerts), social media networks and newsletters. The reader wakes up in the morning not to know ‘what’ but ‘why’. While we deal with this ‘why’, it has lead to the overall restaging of the product.”

Interesting….is it only HT or other newspapers are taking the similar route???

Several people have been inquiring me about some useful web resources on Indian mobile sector. Here is a list of websites I have found useful. I will keep adding to it as and when I find more websites.

1. Internet & Mobile Association of India : This website provides information about internet and mobile industry in India.

2. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India : Indian government’s website on internet and mobile industry related consultation papers and press releases.

3. Cellular Operators Association of India : Latest information on the Indian mobile sector.

If you know of any comprehensive website that provides information on India’s internet and mobile sector, do let me know.

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Sandbox.com is a web and mobile portal developed by Filipinos for online social networking, media content sharing and other web services. The users can chat, send email, watch TV. The cost of any downloaded product is charged to the mobile prepaid card, hence there is no need to enter credit card details. Sandbox also has an online retail portal where users can do shopping.

Source: Internet comes within earshot by Kenneth Del Rosario

Digital Activism is becoming an important topic of discussion on internet, thanks to some very good digital activism campaigns across the world. Facebook, blogs, twitter and mobile phones are becoming important tools for people to connect with others and build a grassroots campaign.

Today I attended an interesting presentation by Mary Joyce co-founder of digiactivism on Digital Activism. Several questions and thoughts emerged in my mind after listening to her presentation -

1. What exactly is digital activism? Is it individuals advocating for a cause or a network of people coming together to take action for a cause? Because an individual may have an opinion or a personal agenda which may be worthy of action but should it be characterized as digital activism? Or is it individuals creating awareness, networking with people and building consensus to take action?

2. How important is the language used in a digital activism campaign? For example, using threatening language against the government may be risky and lead to a blocking of social media? But when the same issue is presented in a non-threatening language it may be more persuasive?

3. Are digital activism platforms connecting the converted or are they useful in converting?

This story in AsiaOne digital reported that social media will play an active role in Indian elections this year. New electronic machines will be used for voting and there is an online voter registration campaign. Facebook, YouTube and blogs all of them will be used for campaigning. Political parties are sending SMS updates to voters.

Of the 700 million voters, 100 million youth between the 18 – 24 years will be first time voters. It would be an interesting election.

I recently came across these mobile phone ads targeting Indian youth:

1. MotoYuva A810: Sabko Banaa Dalo! – This ad shows that one young man is making a cartoon of teacher on his mobile phone.

MotoYuva W230 – This ad shows the father scolding the young boy for creating a mess in the house. The boy puts the earphones and listens to songs on his mobile shutting out his father.

I am not sure how popular these ads were in India but I think the kind of cultural values they are promoting are questionable. Let me know what you think of these ads.

The Internews report, The Promise of Ubiquity, written by John West provides interesting information on how mobile phones are growing in the developing countries. The report points out that mobile phone ownership is soon catching up with TV ownership in the developing countries and mobile users outnumber the Internet users. Therefore, it is important for traditional media to consider mobiles as a viable media platform to reach out to a large number of mobile subscribers, otherwise some other players may move in.

The governments in the developing countries have bought the argument that mobile phones can be used for social and economic development and pushing to expand markets in the poor areas. Therefore, the mobile phone manufacturers are now focussed on developing ULCH (ultra low cost handsets) which may cost less than $20. The mobile service providers are providing services at a very low ARPU (average revenue per user). For e.g. the ARPU in India is $6 and probably lower. However, to overcome the costs the industry is pushing the development of VAS (value added services). Due to this the traditional model of measuring revenue in terms of ARPU is shifting to AMPU (Average Margin Per User).

Text-based services are continuing to grow which may be utilized by news organizations to provide news services to mobile subscribers. The Jasmine News Service in Sri Lanka is a good exammple of how this is happening. However, before launching a text-based news service an organization may need to take several factors into account such as cost, literacy, the kind of service they want to lauch etc.

The report also notes that mobile web is going to grow and will soon be available in most parts of developing world.

Overall the report provides a good analysis of what is happening in the developing world in the mobile industry and argues why it may be important for traditional media to move in the space.

Katrin Verclas, the founder of mobileactive.org reviews the report in detail and notes out some important points that John West misses in his assessment of mobile media in the developing world.

In the Internews report,  The Promise of Ubiquity, Jan Blom, the designer for Nokia in Bangalore is quoted as saying that:

1. India is a fashion conscious market, where mobile phones are seen as a way to project image or self-expression.

2. The users are extremely cost conscious.

3. SMS dominates the VAS market.

4. People are seeking playful experiences and emotional expression through mobile phones. Therefore, there is a need for applications that can bring about joy and social interaction.