According to the most recent reports published by the Statista Research Department, by the end of 2021 there will be 844 million smartphone users in India, data that is double that of five years ago. Currently, the average use of a smartphone by a person is 4.6 hours a day, which positions the Indian population as the third in the world, only being surpassed by Indonesia and Brazil. How is it possible that the technology landscape in this country has changed so much in such a short time? A number of factors respond to this fact.
Digitization process by the Government of India since 2017
For four years, the government of India has focused its efforts on a plan to digitize
the country, which covers multiple fields, ranging from electronic administration to
digital payments, through access to the Internet. In this way, it has been possible to
establish Wi-Fi zones in about 1000 towns, with the idea that this number will grow in
the next few years.
The Digital Village project, in addition to promoting employment among the rural
population, involves ten other Indian Ministries, including those of Communications,
Agriculture or Health. Given these changes, the main management tools for people
are smartphones, which have made possible an increase in people’s quality of life,
increasing electronic commerce, online financial management, and even remote
medical consultations.
Smartphones as a tool for work, entertainment and communication
Although a large sector of the population uses smartphones as a work tool, the truth is that it is also valued as a communication tool and an object of entertainment. However, the recent events that have been experienced worldwide due to the coronavirus pandemic have resulted in people being more dependent on their devices, so that their adaptation to a more digital lifestyle has been accelerated.
When investigating what types of applications are the most used by the population, it is revealed that in terms of entertainment, mobile games have a great influence on the population. In fact, in terms of uses of operating systems, according to Statista in 2020 iOS has a share of approximately 5%, while Android has a 95% preference. The reasons why India presents a different inclination in mobile devices with respect to the rest of the world are very diverse, among them because Apple does not currently have official stores, the only ones capable of providing a qualified customer service.
With all this data, telecommunications companies see exponential growth in India, as in the case of mobile application and tool development. In fact, Ericsson is aware of this phenomenon and has reported that the average traffic per smartphone in India is among the highest globally, projecting growth of approximately 40GB by 2026.
If the data continues as it currently is, this information will be translated to an estimated 330 million subscribers as of this date, that is, from spending 14GB of monthly mobile internet data per person.
