Browsers vs apps! Who will win the battle?

The number of mobile subscribers in the country has reached 723 million as of last month. Over the next couple of years, the penetration of mobile services across the nation particularly in the rural areas is expected to increase manifold. With poor fixed line connectivity across the country, a lot more people are expected to go online through the mobile devices. This is also helped by the fact that the technology is continuously changing with the coming of smart phones and other such kind of devices.

Android, Blackberry, Firefox, Opera, Safari and many such browsers have specially come up with their mobile versions of the same. But then before them, people did have apps on their phones. And with more and more people accessing data services through the apps on their mobiles, a lot more people are sounding the death knell of mobile browsers.

But is that so?

In villages across the country where it is very difficult to build fixed lines, mobiles would be the sole way people there would be able to access the net. A number of companies such as Airtel, Idea etc. have already started tapping this market by lieu of offering good offers for voice based services as well as web–based connectivity.

A mobile phone generally doesn’t have too many apps – probably 5-6 at max. For the rest, one has to go online. With better connectivity and cheaper technology, this has the potential to be really successful. A minefield for future companies, isn’t it?

Take for example the Opera Mini browser which is present on many new devices like Videocon, Lava, Micromax etc. People using it access complete sites like they do on a PC. Over the last year its usage has increased over 300% with a very high chunk of it on feature phones like Nokia ones rather than smart phones.

But then?

The browser, apps, SMS, voice everything needs to be integrated together to reach the people in India everywhere.

Even today, SMS is the prime way companies are trying to reach the population of this country. But then who knows what will happen tomorrow?

As they say technology never reaches a stage of decline, it just keeps innovating itself! So this battle will go on and it would be fantastic fight to watch!!!!

What do you think ? who will win it ?