mobile social media in india

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Mobile Social Media in India It is now common knowledge that the key discriminating factor in the General Elections of 2014 was social media. The battle for the people’s mandate was fought and won in the virtual sphere. Narendra Modi gave his party and himself an incredible triumph by selling hope, and selling it well. By leveraging the power of social media so vigorously, he captured the imagination and support of netizens in one fell swoop. And needless to say, a major chunk of these netizens are the youth, the largest constituent of India’s headcount of 1.2 billion. Vigorous campaigning on Facebook, Twitter and the like saw the creation of the Opinionated Youth like never before. While one can wax eloquent about the Elections of 2014, it is important to put this trend in the right perspective and understand its significance. In the 21 st century, social media offers the single most potent means of engaging the perpetually connected youth, and deriving disproportionate benefit in return. In fact, there has never been a better way of communicating with them, due in no small part to the proliferation of the means of connecting to the internet. Smartphones and tablets are today commonplace among the youth, and have a very comfortable existence alongside the laptop. Add to that the fact that these devices are carried by people wherever they go and you have the perfect recipe for an all-out social media revolution. It is important to understand what comes under the mobile devices umbrella. Indian consumers primarily access the internet on the go through internet enabled feature phones, smartphones and tablets. While feature phones have been in the market for quite some time now, the past two or three years have seen an exponential increase in the adoption of smartphones and tablets. It is difficult to spell out a clear cut difference between a smartphone and a feature phone, but for the purpose of this article, a smartphone can be defined as a device that works on a sophisticated operating system with a higher processing power. As per a survey carried out by Nielsen in 2013, 81% of the population on the internet uses mobiles (feature phones), 10 % use smartphones, 3% use tablets. It can be seen that in spite of the widespread adoption of smartphones, feature phones maintain a stronghold on the mobile internet domain, although smartphones, riding on the back of feature rich applications and a much more enhanced browsing experience, are seeing a significant rise in adoption. One need not look far and wide for proof. Over the past year a lot of new players have thrown their hat into the smartphone ring, and are not shying away from taking the big brands head on. An increase in choice has caught the fancy of consumers, and smartphones are selling like hot cakes, as made apparent by a near 3-fold increase in sales in 2013 over 2012. The scene is not quite as rosy for tablets, though, which experienced a decline in the early part of 2013 and continues to experience laggard growth. The reasons for this could be a lack of differentiation between tablets and smartphones in the minds of consumers, and issues related to distribution channels and manufacturers. It can therefore be said that

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Page 1: Mobile Social Media in India

Mobile Social Media in India

It is now common knowledge that the key discriminating factor in the General Elections of

2014 was social media. The battle for the people’s mandate was fought and won in the

virtual sphere. Narendra Modi gave his party and himself an incredible triumph by selling

hope, and selling it well. By leveraging the power of social media so vigorously, he captured

the imagination and support of netizens in one fell swoop. And needless to say, a major

chunk of these netizens are the youth, the largest constituent of India’s headcount of 1.2

billion. Vigorous campaigning on Facebook, Twitter and the like saw the creation of the

Opinionated Youth like never before.

While one can wax eloquent about the Elections of 2014, it is important to put this trend in

the right perspective and understand its significance. In the 21st century, social media offers

the single most potent means of engaging the perpetually connected youth, and deriving

disproportionate benefit in return. In fact, there has never been a better way of

communicating with them, due in no small part to the proliferation of the means of

connecting to the internet. Smartphones and tablets are today commonplace among the

youth, and have a very comfortable existence alongside the laptop. Add to that the fact that

these devices are carried by people wherever they go and you have the perfect recipe for an

all-out social media revolution.

It is important to understand what comes under the mobile devices umbrella. Indian

consumers primarily access the internet on the go through internet enabled feature phones,

smartphones and tablets. While feature phones have been in the market for quite some

time now, the past two or three years have seen an exponential increase in the adoption of

smartphones and tablets. It is difficult to spell out a clear cut difference between a

smartphone and a feature phone, but for the purpose of this article, a smartphone can be

defined as a device that works on a sophisticated operating system with a higher processing

power. As per a survey carried out by Nielsen in 2013, 81% of the population on the internet

uses mobiles (feature phones), 10 % use smartphones, 3% use tablets. It can be seen that in

spite of the widespread adoption of smartphones, feature phones maintain a stronghold on

the mobile internet domain, although smartphones, riding on the back of feature rich

applications and a much more enhanced browsing experience, are seeing a significant rise in

adoption. One need not look far and wide for proof. Over the past year a lot of new players

have thrown their hat into the smartphone ring, and are not shying away from taking the big

brands head on. An increase in choice has caught the fancy of consumers, and smartphones

are selling like hot cakes, as made apparent by a near 3-fold increase in sales in 2013 over

2012. The scene is not quite as rosy for tablets, though, which experienced a decline in the

early part of 2013 and continues to experience laggard growth. The reasons for this could be

a lack of differentiation between tablets and smartphones in the minds of consumers, and

issues related to distribution channels and manufacturers. It can therefore be said that

Page 2: Mobile Social Media in India

smartphones are well on the way to becoming synonymous with mobile internet access in

the near future.