Mobile phones will rule and shape Internet in India
There are an estimated 110 million mobile users in India today. 4 - 5 million new users are being added every month. The mobile phone will definitely play a huge role in shaping the future of Internet and Internet services in India. Rajesh Jain, makes an excellent point during his interview with Knowledge@Wharton. In particular:
For me, three words help define the mobile Internet. They are: now, near and new. “Now” is about what is happening right now in real time. Wherever I am, I can find the latest cricket scores or the top news stories because my mobile phone is always with me. “Near” is about location — it can be as small as a neighborhood or it could be a city. If I’m about to take a flight this evening, could I get an alert on my mobile phone if the flight is delayed? Some of this is starting to happen, but it needs to happen a lot more. It could make a real difference to people’s lives. Finally, “new” is about new stuff in which I might be interested. Just as a search engine like Google is a good way to find material that has been published in the past, the mobile phone is a great way to keep in touch with future or incremental content.
An article in the TelecomWeb (free registration) has something on the same lines.
As with many third-world countries, China and India are leapfrogging wireline technology and are going straight to wireless communications technologies. A new report from the firm says the portion of low-cost handsets with basic cameras is high enough that, during the next 10 years, “hundreds of millions” of Chinese and Indians not only will have their first phone experience via a wireless handset, but also their first camera experience.
Each Internet services company will need to leverage this fact to get a stronghold in the market.
December 3rd, 2006 at 10:50 am
It is the mobile which will take the internet to the masses and beyond the educated/IT-Savvy gen.
Today India competes with China in mobile penetration which has surpassed big metros,towns and villages in the country.In the next three years the biggest boom in mobile technology will be the spread of internet which may become a necessity from being a tool what it is today.