Indian mobile handset sector is at a rapid growth trajectory and recently, the government of India indicated that around 100 companies in the field of mobile phones have started making their products in India as the nation gears up to become a major hub for manufacturing.In fact, over all Indian mobile industry is expected to be $217 billion by 2020.
With flagship phones of major mobile manufacturers costing over Rs 1 lakh in India, demand is still high for phones across price points.
However, there are still many prevalent issues for Indian buyers from their mobile phones.
With 4G data prices dropping everyday, Indian mobile users have been using 4G data on their mobile for several hours now, which eats away battery usage at a rapid pace. Buyers are now looking at mAh before any phone purchase.
In a recent study on buying patterns that we conducted, a significant 44% of the people surveyed in a report said that they want better battery capacity in their mobile handsets as even most of the high-end recently launched phones are unable to run whole day with extensive 4G data usage.
Surprisingly, only 8% of the buyers bothered about screen quality indicating performance are taking over screen aesthetics.
With data prices dropping almost every month post the market entry of Reliance Jio and 4G enabled phones also getting cheaper, many Indian buyers have now moved to 4G phones.
Our studies indicated that 56% of the respondents surveyed were using 4G phones, followed by 3G at 34% and just 7% were using 2G. 4G phones have helped ecommerce companies to scale up their customer acquisitions at a rapid pace as they use variety of marketing strategies including mobile app only deals to push sales via apps.
But surprisingly, cost-conscious Indian customers still control their data usage on phones to a large extent. Data prices have been in a free fall for last one year as all mobile network operators have been slashing the prices to take on attractive offers by Jio. However, our research has shown that in spite of the low prices, 41% of the respondents will limit their data usage but a growing number of respondents, 28% are not monitoring their data usage.
As data rates continue to fall and customers getting surplus of 4G data usage, we also feel many Indian buyers will stop limiting data usage on mobile phones pushing ecommerce, digital wallet and social media markets much further and strong usage of mobile video content apps such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Videos and Hotstar and much more.
Also as Indian buyers get technologically savvy and more mature, mobile processors brandshave started to play key role in their buying decisions.
This is leading to a serious competition among Rs 20,000-Rs 35,000 price bracket range. As many Chinese companies are offering fully loaded phones in that price range, Indian buyers now have problem of plenty.
A whopping 46% are now evaluating which processors are powering their phones, 21% on phone design including camera and screen quality is their last priority as just 12% look for screen quality.
The whole ecosystem of Indian mobile sector is going through a massive maturity stage where mobile phone manufacturers, mobile service providers, accessories provider, mobile wallets and repairing companies are creating one of the most economical and efficient mobile markets in world.
The author is founder, MoMagic Technologies