India witnesses fierce Mobile Internet growth!

More than a decade ago, owning a mobile phone was a luxury. Not any more, though! In fact, now we expect every known person to own a cell phone as a basic necessity of life. This is called revolution – the cellular services have rendered itself all pervasive within the society.

The next revolution, this time around within the mobile space itself, could likely be from the mobile internet. The good thing being – it has already kicked off way before the networks have rolled-out 3G services in the country. Once the fast-speed 3G technology is up for grabs, mobile web usage is likely to gain more prominence as user-friendly in nature.

Mobile Internet Growth

The BuzzCity survey, a global roundup of recent market developments in the mobile internet, indicates that India is amongst the Top-10 countries using mobile internet; even as China plays a catch-up in the top ten lists for the first time ever. India has witnessed a high growth of 233% year-on-year in terms of mobile internet usage driven by cheaper data rates and much improved handsets.

Mobile Internet Advertising Growth

Moreover, India moved to top spot in the fourth quarter of 2010 driven by the strong advertiser demand serving over 4 billion ads, out of 11 billion ads delivered in whole of 2010, to Indian audiences. The findings have also revealed that mobiles are sustaining, not replacing, consumer demand and use of PCs.

Mobile Internet Users Demographics

Interesting facts about Indian Mobile Internet Usage:

• 75% of the mobile web users are from the age group of 20-30 years.
• Only 5% of the mobile internet users are aged more over 35 years.
• 89% of the mobile web users are male.
• Nokia comprises 54% of handsets used for web surfing.
• Samsung contributes 18% of handsets used for web browsing.
• Mobile content constitutes a major chunk of 39% for using mobile internet.
• Entertainment and Lifestyle forms 29% of mobile internet surfing requirements.

Nokia (42%) rules the world when it comes to most prevalent surfing device (however their share is going down) followed by Samsung (10.3%) and Sony Ericsson (9.4%). Moreover, the year 2010 saw an influx of various new handset manufacturers which grabbed a share of 19.1% in terms of surfing devices globally.

Mobile Handset Brands in India

Comparing Indian demographics with that of the matured markets of America, we get to know that 29% of the females in the US use mobile web, as compared to paltry 11% in India. In age-wise distribution, almost 47% of the American users are from over 30 age-groups.

The survey indicates that the usage of mobile web in India is likely to surge further as price wars render data-usage even cheaper. India, Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa and the US are among the top ten traffic-generating markets worldwide.

It would be interesting to watch the growth over next 12 to 18 months given proliferation of 3G services…