Comments on: Mobile in India – Jumping Ahead to the Future

By: SVS Subwoofer For Sale

SVS Subwoofer For Sale — Fri, 20 May 2011 16:15:39 +0000

I notice you haven’t written an additional weblog for a while?

By: Chandrashekhar Ln

Chandrashekhar Ln — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:54:56 +0000

Completely agree Mansi. The big gap is between the software and hardware. While there are over 800 iphone apps that have been developed in India and the telecom operators are themselves investing in VAS content, the hardware, ie the basic handset capability is the bottleneck. Out of the 520+ mn cell phones in India, less than 10% have GPRS. And about 80% (acc to the Juxtconsult report) use their phones only for SMS and calling. The growth in adoption of VAS will happen when the costs of advanced handsets follow the price drop in tarrifs by telecom operators!- Chandru

By: Mansi

Mansi — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:31:23 +0000

Great post! I agree that there’s a lot of cross-cultural learning that needs to take place to truly optimize and reach mobile’s potential as a communications platform for advertisers.

After having observed the mobile industry in India over the last twenty days, it is apparent that we might have leaped over a few basic steps and went right ahead to the advanced value added services. What is great is the adoption rate in India.
People seem to be comfortable with completely new forms of services; for example: mobile transactions etc. But not extremely open to new forms of devices. I think that everyone is still waiting for the big thing to hit the mobile industry: a platform that is either the ‘Tata Nano’ of the mobile industry (does the job well and is affordable/simple) or a ‘Meru cabs’ for the mobile services (people don’t mind paying higher if they completely understand what they are paying for).

I was disappointed in seeing spam-ish text messages sent to my phone every day. We need to find better ways to reach people and in ways that actually provide value not chaos.

By: Rachel S

Rachel S — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:02:44 +0000

Very interesting article! I am a great believer that the Indian mobile market will become one of the dominating in a near future. The penetration is low with only 25% of the population equipped with a cellphone. I think the social networking aspect will boom with potentially a billion people jumping on the wireless internet! I had a interesting talk with a Swedish company called The Mobile Life, they develop mobile social networks and India was the first market and they seems to be working with all the operators..checkout http://www.themobilelife.com

I wonder when iphone will take off in India, that would need investments in network speed to cater for the demand which should make Nokia and Ericsson happy.

cheers..

By: T

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:22:43 +0000

What’s holding the US back is the carriers and cable networks. Look at apple and AT&T. Netflix.

The technology is there, the market is there. Sooner or later the carrier’s grip will be loosened and innovation will be allowed to happen exponentially, converging all media and access (experiences/interactions) through personal mobile devices.

But notice I didn’t say phone.

By: Mobile in India – Jumping Ahead to the Future « One Size Fits One

Mobile in India – Jumping Ahead to the Future « One Size Fits One — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:50:14 +0000

[...] in India – Jumping Ahead to the Future This is a re-post from BBH Labs, where I co-wrote this post with Chandrashekhar L from BBH India and Ben Malbon from BBH [...]