Smartphones to double, 3G usage will surpass 2G in India in 2013

These days we don’t talk much about the number of mobile users in India, it has gone above 800m and the growth is slow. The flavor of the season is mobile internet, smartphones, 3G in India.

An interesting interview of Sanjay Kapoor, CEO, Airtel (India and South Asia) talks about smartphone usage, the need for Indian languages,

• The current penetration of smartphone in India is still below 5% while in countries like Japan and Korea it is 65% and 59%, respectively. It is expected to double in 2013-14.
• The proliferation of smartphone in India will broadly be determined by a few push and pull trends.
• India and China are today 3G ready and smartphone hungry. This will be another pull for the smartphone market.
• With 50% of India’s population below the age group of 26, the industry is confident that youth will be the biggest pull factor for smartphones consumption in India.
• The average data consumption on smartphone is 4.2 times that of a normal feature phone.
• If the share of smartphones in India indeed doubles the revenues for mobile operators from data will grow from 14% to cross 20% and 3G consumption will overtake that of 2G in India.
• The share of non-voice revenues has already breached the 50% mark in Japan and South Korea.
• Rural India is expected to contribute 35-40% share of non-voice consumption.
• 2G & 3G mobile data has grown by over 50% during July-Dec 2012 – indicating a 2x increase in mobile data consumption.
• Increase in vernacular/regional content will also create a new market for developers, application and content providers.

We at Oneindia have been witnessing a healthy growth of our mobile traffic.

• Compare prices of smartphones in India