The greed and death of massification

The recent hiccups in Blackberry’s network and deliverance brought another interesting case study on why going to mass looks lucrative but can be a killer, in India.

The earlier case study where I argued that the hibernation and certain death of Orkut (the first ever “ice age” social network in this subcontinent) was due to the sudden “en-mass” appeal of it.

India is clearly divided in between “have” and “have not”. The have will always try to float ahead of have not and prove that they are away from the clutter. A struggle for “identity” (the flick kick of “struggle for existence”) is what defines a product in this subcontinent.

Many products understood it early and succeeded or they got it as they have evolved. For example, Facebook now has the “timeline” app that differentiates one who “knows” the apps from the one who’s mass citizen of FB and not app savvy! In future FB will add more features that will distinctly divide FB India between “Have” and “Have not” (need not be the economic definition but social currency). Now the blackberry is available at a price of any smart phone in India and hence it’s moving towards the mass.

This massification will eventually kill Blackerry’s charisma and convert it into another museum piece like Nokia. The consumption psychology and adapted differentiation theory has to be well placed before the “greed” of capturing the “whole India”.

Blow berry!! young influencers from india talk about Blackberry (and more)

Blow berry young influencers from india talk about blackberry

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Nokia has lost the "cool" among the youth in India

Nokia is loosing grip over the mobile market in India (for last 2 years) and has already gone off from being either cool or staple among youth.

here's some facts as per Mobilepundit:

• Nokia’s market share reduced from about 64% in 2008-09 to nearly 52% in 2009-10
• Samsung gained from 10% to above 17%
• In the past 3 years, Micromax, Spice and Karbonn have emerged from nowhere to become number 3, 4 and 5 respectively
• Nokia India, which is second biggest market for the company after China, contributed Rs 18,000 crore to the company’s worldwide sales in 2009
• The Indian mobile handset market has grown by 30.17 % from 116 million handsets in 2008, to 151 million handsets in 2009, as per Analysys Mason data
• As per a CyberMedia Research report, the Indian mobile handset market will grow 25% by volume in 2011 to 210 million units with smartphones contributing sales of nearly 12 million units in 2011

More information at : http://business-standard.com/india/news/reconnect/432525/

Indian Youth Has Lowest Percentage Of Mobile Data Users : Nielsen

Nielsen released part of its Mobile Youth Around The World report in a blog post. Nielsen studied patterns in 9 countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China, Vietnam, Germany, U.S., U.K., Spain and Italy. The report tries to establish phone preferences, purchase drivers, data usage etc. And tries to demonstrate how local factors, culture, economy etc have an influence on mobile usage.

The part released in the recent post compared three factors across the 9 countries – Data consumption, Connection type preference (prepaid/postpaid) and multiple SIM usage.

Advanced Data Usage

China had the highest number ‘Advanced Data Users’ and India was at the bottom of the pile with only 13%. And by some distance, the next lowest was Brazil with 40%. But India did report the highest percentage of SMS/Voice Users and Voice only Users. Highlighting the scope for Voice and SMS based VAS. China on the other hand had a mere 2% of voice only users. Also interesting is that China pipped US to the No.1 spot. I’d be interested in seeing these numbers again after large scale 3G adoption though. How much data can we really consume at 2/2.5G speeds. The other way to look at it is in terms of how much potential there still is.

Prepaid Vs Postpaid

97% used Prepaid connections, which is no real surprise at all. Note, that all BRIC countries had 85% plus prepaid users. While US and the European countries were all below 60%. In fact,In US less than a quarter of the youth had prepaid connections. Part of the same study revealed that 35% of Indians aged 15-19 and 54% aged 20-24 paid for their own mobile connections.

Multiple SIMs

Given the number of people that seem to have multiple SIMs, I’m a little surprised that only 15% of the Indian youth said they had multiple SIM cards. Of course, if you look at raw numbers, 15% would still be a pretty large number here. Only China had a lower percentage of people using multiple SIM cards, again 14% there would be a huge number too.

Source: http://www.watblog.com/2011/02/23/indian-youth-among-the-lowest-mobile-data-consumers-nielsen/

further reference: http://trak.in/tags/business/2011/02/24/indian-youth-mobile-phone-usage-survey/

'ROLE OF A CELL PHONE IN MY LIFE'

To start with , I have alwyas been a gadget freak all my life and that's entirely because of having 2 elder brothers..

Phones to me play quite a imporatnat role because of my intrest in gadgets ..thats d only reason..
It's not that I can't do without a phone ,I can, but its just my intrest in this that I'm always eager to know and be updated about the latest phones in the market.

I got my first phone when I was in the 10th, it was an ordinary nokia model, ( it was my brothers used phone) I took it school by hiding it in my shorts which we wore under our skirts. It was just a crazy thing I always wanted to do.

Then in the 11th I got my brothers second phone and then from d 12th onwards i realized I was very intrested in gadgets my brother too realised I was quite intrested.

And then the jouney of my touch screen phones began which is still on...
I first got the 02 phone when I was in the 12th standard and then in college I got the apple i phone and now I have googles first phone , the nexus one.

Using a touch screen initially was a pretty tough job but now It's easier for me to use a touch screen phones, as it make work far more simpler in many ways.

My life has revolved around gadgets for d past 5 years ,thanks to my brother . He keeps me updated abt all the gadgets in the world and I myself regularly keep myself updated.

Life without a phone would be very peaceful, but life with a phone makes it easy..

So u obviously can't get a peaceful and easy life so u need to chose one , so i chose an easy life..but still in serach of peace in some way..

Most of us think that people use phones to show off but to me its completely wrong , to me its one's intrest in the phone.. Probably this could be cause a lot of people close to me are also gadget freaks.

I'm used to hearing people say to me that I show off by using touch screen phones, but I've stopped caring too much cause I know why I'm using the phone , purely my interests.. I now don't care about what people think, it does not make a difference to my life.

As long as i know I'm gaining knowledge I'm happy..

Phones today I'm sure are owned by every class of perosn..and its nice to see people in the urge to learn about phones.

For instance my mom is so not a gadget person at all , just a month ago she told me she wanted a phone so we got her one and my dad had slowly been teaching her the ways to use it, as I didn't hv the patience to do so..

It was nice to see her using the phone, I was really happy when she first sent me a text message, it felt like my mom was intertsed in to know what technology was all about.

Phones today I'm sure play a quite important role to all of us but we should be carfelul they dont overpower our thoughts cause we should always remember that we are the ones who have created these phones, let them not rule us...

Ekta Nahar, Chennai

Impact of mobile phones @ youth in India

The basic requirement for a normal human in India is redefined – food, clothing, shelter and cell phone.

Cell phones have become a mainstream product in today’s world and have a huge impact on today’s world. With youth population constituting half of the population, India has become a fine breeding ground for highest cell connections.

When mobile phones hit the high street over 10 years ago, not only did it give us the ability to communicate with friends, family and colleagues anytime and anywhere, but along the way it has also changed our social behavior and has made a huge cultural impact.

It is the easiest way to stay connected with family and friends and also provides security, like updating our parents where we are if it gets late to go home. It helps to socialize, creates a sense of belonging to peer group and easy access to media and environment. Apart from its regular use, cell phones express individual identities. Right from the model we buy till the ring tone and wallpaper set, every minute detail is noted. Mobile phones have also become a secret diary for teenagers.

On the contrary, cell phones have also made people introvert and there is a slight decline in conversations, thanks to SMS. ..
- By Harini Kannan (student), Chennai