INDIAINTERNET, MOBILE & SOCIAL

MEDIA LANDSCAPE

INTRO

By the end of 2014, 240 million people will have access to the Internet in India. With nearly a billion mobile phones in use, it is also a truly mobile-first country. The mass urban uptake and growing rural reach of these new communication tools and servic-es provide both exciting opportunities and new chal-

lenges for Indian social change initiatives.

This document intends to provide a quick over-view of the current media landscape. We’ve com-piled it in support of organizations working across

India, we hope you will find it useful!

M4ID TeAM

INTeRNeT

page 4 M4ID 2014

Internet

INTeRNeT ReACHA QUARTER OF A BILLION!

Number of projected internet users June 2014

+240 MILLION

The internet in India took more than a decade to move from 10 million to 100 million and only 3 years from 100 to 200 million. From here on,

we can hope to develop a robust internet ecosystem with a multitude of local and global players

and a thriving Internet economy.

IAMAI (Internet and Mobile Association of India) chairman Rajan Anandan

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Internet

eNGLISHTHE LANGUAGE OF CHOICE

Most Internet users in India use english when accessing the web. Reasons for english preference include: - Lack of comfort with written South Asian languages - Mobile and computer technology that is often pre-installed with

Roman alphabet keyboards and English-language web browsers

Many organizations have opted for parts or all of their communications to take place in romanized Hindi to increase the accessibility of their outreach.

Over 99% of Wikipedia use in India takes place in English language entries, despite the South Indian language presence on the service.

Well designed South Asian language interfaces could present opportunities for local language

adoption in digital communications.

For eg. Google Hindi Input is a Hindi keyboard for devices running on Android. The app also supports transliteration.

+99% entries in english

MOBILeMOBILe

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INDIAA MOBILE-FIRST COUNTRY

Number of mobile phones in use as of 2013

Number of mobile phones projected to be sold in 2015

Number of smart phones with internet capabilities projected to be sold in 2015

+875 MILLION

+225 MILLION

+75 MILLIONWorld Bank Photo Collection

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MOBILeASPIRATIONAL AT

ALL LEVELS OF SOCIETY- Mobile phone penetration is spreading fast in all demographics

in India

- More equitably distributed in low resource communities than other types of technology

- Highly aspirational, mobile phones have direct economic benefits, like access to banking and other economic activity

76% 89%9% 25%

IN THe pOOReST quARTILe IN THe RICHeST quARTILe

has a mobile phone

has a mobile phone

has a television

has a television

(Source: BBC Media Action, 2013)

MOBILe peNeTRATION IN RuRAL BIHAR: A COMpARISON

The advent of mobile phones in rural communities, especially for women and girls, is a revolutionary opportunity, and

it’s one that we are not yet seizing.

There is an incredible amplification effect you can have through technology that

allows more information and more opinions.

GANNoN GILLESPIEDirector of Strategic Development, Tostan

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Basic phones will remain the most relevant device in low resource

settings. Despite low cost smartphones fast entering the mobile market, lack of Internet infrastructure and the cost

of a monthly data plan are amongst the main barriers to uptake of mobile

Internet services.

World Bank Photo Collection

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SMS and voice based technology continues to reach the biggest volumes of users, and will remain

a significant media in the new communications technology landscape.

Notably, many internet services can be provided via SMS or voice telephony, such as access to Google,

Facebook, Twitter, Weather, news, word definitions, unit conversions, or language translations.

SIMpLe INTeRFACe MOBILeSERVICES REMAIN POPULAR

For organisations, reaching key audiences through services that are not dependent on mobile internet

might be more effective than though Internet-only channels.

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SMS AND CALL SeRvICeSCONTINUE TO GROw

U2topia, an SMS based navigation service, has added over a million users every month in 2014. The target age group is 13-24 year olds.

CASe eXAMpLe

JustDial processes over a million daily search queries: 40% of which originate from phone calls, and 60% come from

web-based queries.

Photo: Eirik Newth

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MeRA SWASTHyA, MeRI AAWAz VOICE-BASED MOBILE SERVICE

SEES FAST GROwTH IN RURAL UP

CASe eXAMpLe

Mera Swasthya, Meri Aawaz is an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) service to gather and publish data on illicit fees charged for maternal

health care.

Users register an incident through voice-guided phone call, by pressing numbers on their keypad.

When the call is completed, the report is placed on a map and tracked in the service website.

Run by the UP NGo Sahayog, over 200 incidents have been reported between its kickoff in January 2014 and April

2014.

Service doesn’t rely on text messaging, making the use more accessible to users who do not type in Roman alphabet or don’t use text messaging functions in general.

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MOBILeDRIVING INTERNET CONNECTIVITY

The number of mobile Internet users is going to reach 155 million in India by the end of March 2014, and 185 million

by June 2014, maintaining a quarter-on-quarter growth of 20%.

the IAMAI and IMRB International report

Active Internet users going online from

their mobile phones

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MOBILe INTeRNeTUSER DEMOGRAPHICS

Almost half of mobile Internet users are less than 25 years

In contrast to older dempgraphics, user growth in the younger

demographics is generated by both male and female segments.

Rural/urban Digital Divide exists, but on the decrease

Urban internet mobile users 103 million by Dec 2013.

Rural India expected to grow from 27 million users in Dec 2013 to

32 million by June 2014.

<18AGe 25-30 31-35 36-40 41+18-24

48%

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WHATSAppSTANDARDIZED MODE

OF MESSAGING

Active users, rapid adoption in India40 MILLION

Most popular featureGROUP CHAT Whatsapp and similar texting and telephony services

are quickly replacing traditional SMS and voice calls on smartphones and select feature phones.

It is free to use over wifi or with a data plan. Features include sending text messages and group chats as well

as sharing images, video, and audio media.

Whatsapp’s emerging popularity and quick scaling is quickly leading to a technology lock-in phenomenon, where the service becomes a standard mode of communication, much like mass SMS in the past. For example, Whatsapp is pre-installed in all sold units of

Nokia ASHA phones.

CASe eXAMpLe

Whatsapp and similar messaging platforms are the most engaging applications in smart and feature phones, and are therefore an interesting media.

These apps have played an important role in most of the global uprisings of the past few years with

activists using the services to improve communica-tion and organize activities between protesters.

SOCIAL

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SOCIAL MeDIA DOMINATES SCREENTIME

India has the highest growth this year. User numbers will

increase by 37.4%.

Number of social media users Q1 2014

+130 MILLION

Log on to social media services daily

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HOW INDIA uSeS SOCIAL MeDIA

While social media is dominantly used for personal reasons, 58% of Indian users discuss issues, products and services relevant to them.

86% • CHECK UPDATES

82% • SEND MESSAGE/ MAIL

81% • SHARE/VIEW PHoToGRAPHS

79% • GET IN ToUCH WITH oLD BATCHMATES/CoLLEAGUES

73% • WATCH VIDEoS/MoVIES oR LISTEN To MUSIC

73% • KEEP IN ToUCH WITH FAMILY

63% • USE SITE’S APPLICATIoN

58% • DISCUSS ISSUES/PRoDUCTS/SERVICES

52% • FIND oUT ABoUT PRoSPECTIVE SPoUSE/LoVE INTEREST

51% • PLAY GAMES

46% • TRACK EX-BoYFRIEND/GIRLFRIEND/SPoUSE

43% • RESEARCH FUTURE EMPLoYER/EMPLoYEE

Source: The Nielsen Company, absolutData

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NIRBHAyA Mass public protests that followed the Nirbhaya case were self-motivated and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp played an important role in organising them. “The political class in India has been shaken by the speed and efficiency with which the protests were coordinated. ”eCONOMIC TIMeS DEC 29, 2012

18,000 tweets in response on 18 December 2012

‘Rashtrapati Bhavan’, ‘Delhi Gang rape’ & ‘Raisina Hill’ Top trending hashtags in India on 18 December 2012

Facebook 2012 & ‘Delhi for Women’s Safety’ - Facebook pages created on December 18, 2012 received 5046 and 4263 ‘Likes’ respectively.

Over 15,000 downloads Nirbhaya: Be Fearless App Automatically shows information on the driver, cab, route, and GPS location.

AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal

SOCIAL

POPULAR SOCIAL MEDIA SERVICES

IN INDIA

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FACeBOOK: 100 MILLION MONTHLY ACTIVE USERS

site on the Internet after Google in India2ND MOST VISITED

the service from their mobile phones, often from their Facebook app.

85% USERS ACCESS

Average users time spent on Facebook2 HOURS

Average Indian user connected to as many as 80 community pages, groups and events

80 COMMUNITY PAGES

Demographics are diversifying, yet Facebook remains a young adult oriented service

18-34 YEAR OLDS

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FACeBOOK

Besides being a media platform where users can share and engage

in a range of media such as videos, pictures and games, we expect to

see a stronger move around storage (cloud-based) and utility services from

Facebook.

Neha Dharia, analyst at Ovum

FACeBOOK FOR eveRy pHONe, eveRy LANGuAGe

Facebook has added Hindi to its java-based Facebook for Every Phone feature phone mobile app and will offer this in seven more local languages - Gujarati, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi,

Bengali and Marathi.

Service offerings like Facebook for Every Phone and compli-mentary SMS based access dem-onstrate the growing interest amongst emerging user groups.

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TWITTeR 33 MILLION USERS

Organisations are using Twitter to campaign, build awareness, raise funds, promote programmes, promote Facebook and other social media channels, highlight news about their cause, and update about activities in the organization, such as upcoming events or organizational milestones.

12th most visited site.

Stark gender disparity - 80% of users are male and less than 20% of

users are female.

Source of news - 16% of Indian users regularly access the service to

get news updates.

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LINKeDIN 8TH MOST VISITED SITE

26 million members from India.

For organizations, LinkedIn could be “a research database” of potential donors, board members, employees,

partners or other networks.

LinkedIn visualizes personal networks and it could also be leveraged as a means of getting introductions to potential partners through shared or

connected acquaintances.

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yOuTuBe KEY DRIVER OF INTERNET USAGE

6 % of the world’s 2 billion YouTube views come from India.

35 million unique visits in a month with a reach of almost 55% of online Indian

population.

Local content is distributed mainly through YouTube and is dominated by

Bollywood.

An efficient way of spreading information especially when integrated with other

popular social media platforms.

SOCIAL

EMERGING SOCIAL MEDIA SERVICES

IN INDIA

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pINTeReST REACH YOUNG & FEMALE

MARKeTING AND OuTReACH CHANNeL

For Indian organisations, pinterest offers an avenue for reaching urban educated

female segments.

pinterest is especially effective in driving traffic to organisational websites, i.e. getting pinterest users to visit the organisation’s website. pinterest could also drive refferal for e.g. online and

mobile fundraising.

A visual bookmarking and sharing platform for collecting visual objects (photographs, graphics

etc) on the web.

97% of users are women.

Gained mass popularity in India in a relatively short time - An estimated 10% of all users from

India.

The mobile experience on smartphone and tablet is one of the reasons behind the strong

user base of Pinterest.

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INSTAGRAM ADDS AUTHENTICITY & REAL TIME TO IMAGES

A photo and short video sharing mobile application where users may apply digital filters to images, communicate through

hashtags and share content to other social media services.

Although seeing fast uptake, currently only 2.7% of the global users are from India. Up to 75% of Indian users are male.

Instagram’s focus on smartphone might slow down its mass adoption in India. However, with mobile photography becoming widespread, Intagram is well positioned to become an effective

communication tool in the future.

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Intagrams are shot with a phone. use cases include live reporting from the field or events. Captions and hashtags add context to the image.

Real time documentation enables users to interact with the photos instantly through e.g. comments, likes, or questions.

With a focused strategy and utilisation of the app’s image editing options, less experienced photographers are able to manage organisational accounts too.

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quORA 40% USERS FROM INDIA

CROWDSOuRCING AND DRIvING TRAFFIC

Organizational presence on quora may include sharing professional expertise of the organization, crowdsourcing advice, ideas, and

insights around a topical issue.

quora questions may also be embedded on other platforms, which makes it good for driving

traffic to a website.

A question-and-answer website where questions are created, answered, edited

and organized by its community of users.

First became popular amongst technology and entrepreneurship circles and university

communities in India.

Integration with Facebook was a propeller of success, as well as the English-only content that tended to cater to a highly educated

population.

CONCLuSION

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CON

CLuSION

DIVERSITY OF USERS

The digital divide is continuously decreasing, and organisations will need to consider emerging user groups, like first-time Internet users, older demographics and non-native English speakers. Tailoring the message form and packaging it right becomes an important

part of an organisation’s content strategy.

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CON

CLuSION

For organisations, social media helps reach a wider audience, leverage limited resources more effectively, create trust, transparency and accountability, enable networking and knowledge sharing and disseminate

information to targeted audience groups.

INCREASE IMPACT THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA

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CON

CLuSION

FAST CHANGING SOCIAL MEDIA BEHAVIOUR

New services and trends in use and uptake will continue changing fast. Organisations need to increasingly explore a multi-platform media strategy, so that they continue to reach their audience irrespective of social media service changes, like the ones lately seen with

Facebook’s declining role.

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CON

CLuSION

Technology when used properly, makes things very interactive and very user-driven. But we need to understand that it’s only a tool. It’s only as good as the content you can design

for it.

PRAIRIE SUMMERAssociate Director of Development & Director

of Communications at Equal Access International

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PICTUREReFeReNCeS

7: World Bank Photo Collection. Photo ID: SDM-IN-091 World BankSDM-IN-091 World Bank

9: Community meeting Girl on cellphone Aurangabad India Photo © Simone D McCourtie. Photo ID SDM-IN-097 World Bank

11: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eiriknewth/2315542857/

19: http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/04/22/second-man-arrested-in-rape-of-five-year-old-girl-in-india/

21: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/info-tech/facebook-suffers-outage-in-india-parts-of-us/article4357064.ece

32: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kiwanja

33: http://gadgets.ndtv.com/social-networking/news/facebook-reports-82-million-monthly-active-users-in-india-62-million-via-mobile-405754

34: http://www.thedrum.com/uploads/drum_basic_article/119547/main_images/social_media_0.jpg

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CON

CLuSION

ABOUTM4ID

M4ID is a social enterprise delivering innovative communication and service design solutions for development and health.

M4ID provides services for not-for-profit organizations and delivers projects across Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe.

We research and develop new service concepts, filling innovation gaps particularly in the area of reproductive,

maternal and newborn child health.

To learn more about M4ID visit: www.m4id.fi