Although sales of mobile phones worldwide is expected to be flat at 1,214 million units by the end of the third quarter of the current financial year compared to last year, handset manufacturers are hopeful that more activity on the social networking front will drive sales in the year 2010-11.
The number of subscribers accessing social networking sites via mobile devices will grow to 607.5 million worldwide by 2013, representing 43% of global mobile web users, according to a forecast issued in November by eMarketer, a global research firm. It further anticipates that mobile social networking will enjoy 46.8% CAGR between 2008 and 2014, increasing from 76 million users worldwide to 760.1 million during that seven-year stretch. The report estimates that 13.3 % of all global mobile subscribers will access social media sites by the year 2014. In India, an estimated 2.5 million youth access social networking service and instant messaging on their phone.
For mobile users, it is now about remaining connected on the go, which has seen social mobility gain immense traction. More phones today are designed for, or come preloaded with social networking features. Mobile social networking continued to snowball in 2009, and now represents close to half of all mobile web usage in the US. Some of the most visited social networking sites on mobile are Facebook, Orkut, Twitter and MySpace, amongst others.
Handsets manufacturers are banking on aggressive adoption of mobile-based social networking apps by at least a certain section of Indian telecom consumers. ?We have seen an increased propensity by consumers to be online and be connected twenty four hours and seven days a week. This has seen further maturity in the applications space,? said V Ramnath, director, operator channels, Nokia India. In the year ahead, social mobility will continue to gain traction. The year 2009 saw handsets manufacturers focusing on creating demand in the market through new product introductions and channel expansion, both in the metro as well as the semi-urban markets. ?Faster downloads, and easy and quick access to internet will open up vast content sources which can be viewed on the phone itself,? said Ranjit Yadav, director IT and telecom, Samsung India Electronics.
The burgeoning growth of the handset market in India was possible because of footprint expansion by existing operators especially in rural India, and launch of operations by newer operators. In the urban battleground, flat-rate data plans introduced by some operators has given impetus to high-end phones with data and value-added services (VAS) capabilities as more users are getting prompted to use mobile Internet and social media. Differentiating its offering from touch phones, Fly Mobile has recently launched Ivory, an evolution, data optimized or evolution, data only (EVDO) phone in the Indian market. EVDO is the third generation CDMA standard. Ivory EVDO phone includes faster connection, download, and upload speeds compared to phones without the EVDO technology. ?The price of handsets are heading south. All this augurs well for the handset brands that are serious about their business, said Prem Kumar, CEO, Meridian Mobile.