Mobile And Internet In India 2014: 349 Million Unique Mobile Phone Users, 70% Traffic From Mobile [INFOGRAPHIC]

India is rapidly advancing in the technological space. With the growing population and increasing smartphone penetration, India is going mobile and digital. Smartphone and internet is not just for the rich and wealthy but more users are becoming informed by getting access of mobile internet. However, the growth is still not at par with the other countries. Through an infographic, we’ll try to delve into the vital stats of Digital India.

Out of the 1.25 billion people in India, only one-fifth of the people use internet and only 50% of these are using social media. The growth of social media sites, especially Facebook, is accelerating the adoption rate. Surprisingly, out of the 886 million mobile subscribers – TRAI claims different figure of 933 million users though – only 10% access social media sites on their mobile. The advent of low-price smartphones and cut-throat price competition in internet tariffs might change this trend and more users in the country may become tech and net-savvy.

The number of mobile internet users in India is low though, share of traffic on mobile devices is more than the share of traffic on desktop. The average low speed in India is less than half the global average, which is one of the reasons of low internet penetration in the country.

The number of unique subscribers are less than half of total 886 million subscribers. The anomaly could be the result of attractive offers on a new sim or the first recharge benefits offered by the telecom companies that make the consumers switch in a very short time. Against the 70% sim penetration in India, the mobile penetration has not even reached the one-third citizens. Understandably, an average Indian has 2.5 sims to his name.

An average Indian spends almost 5 hours accessing internet and out of the 3 hours spent on mobile internet, only 45 minutes are spent doing any other work apart from social media. Unsurprising, since Facebook claims that it has 100 million users in India, out of which 84 million accesses the site or app on their mobile phones.

Indians believe in paying for the services before using it; almost 841.7 million people in India are pre-paid users. It is easier to lay hands on a prepaid sim than a postpaid sim. Moreover, the pre-paid tariffs in India are a lot cheaper than the post-paid. Due to a lack of steady income and having a tight budget, users prefer a prepaid sim.

Though the smartphone penetration is low in India, more than half the smartphone users are using their devices to make an online purchase while more than 90% use their mobile devices to research about a product before buying it. This trend is likely to change the face of m-commerce industry in India. India is known as price-sensitive country and the availability of low-price smartphones is likely to increase the smartphone penetration as well as kill the feature phone market in India.