Mobile platform in India: Android and Facebook are the undisputed leaders

Nielsen’s report “Smart and Social: Android Phones in India” highlights smartphone usage in India. The two dominant operating systems on the mobile are Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. For the past one year Android has grown well in India, the main reason being ‘affordable’ Android mobile phones (sub Rs 10,000 / $200) are available.

There are high-end Android smartphones as expensive as iPhones, but the majority go for the low/medium-end Android phones. The latest costly Android phone sold in India is the much-awaited Samsung Galaxy SIII. The adoption of Android phones globally was 4 times faster than that of the iPhone.

Samsung has captured the Android mobile phone handset market in India, competing head-on with HTC.

Nielsen Informate analysis of social networking usage trends for Android smartphone users in India uncovered the following insights.

1. Social Networking properties (apps/sites) are the most accessed, second only to search
2. Facebook leads the list (88% reach), Google+ comes in at a distant second (17%), and Twitter (13%)
3. One in three Facebook users does not use any other Social Networking property
4. The Facebook app is very sticky, with an average user logging in 17 days a month
5. While Facebook is used throughout the day, engagement levels peak late at night
6. 33% of Facebook users in India on smartphones don’t use any other social networking site.  If the parameter were to be an ‘active’ user, I think the percentage of Facebook users would have been far higher.
7. When compared to the Facebook website the usage of its mobile app is far higher.

I am a bit surprised to see the high reach of Google+ and Twitter. According to me, there is only a handful of high-quality Twitter handles in India. G+ is still unheard of amongst the masses. But things will change.

Will Android Fail?

A few days ago, a friend in the US told me that Android may fail, but rather it may perish. I found that to be unbelievable. I think Google will go the extra mile to ensure that Android succeeds and wins. One of the reasons for this thinking is because of the many variants of Android that is floating around.

Heard many app developers are having a tough time getting their apps to work on all Android variants. My immediate reaction was, “Will HTML5 apps not help jump this hurdle?”

Oracle sued Google for copyright and patent infringement over Google’s use of Java in creating the Android mobile operating system. Just yesterday, the court ruled in Google’s favour.

Personally, I cannot imagine Android not winning the mobile OS war.

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