LD Mobile Usage Survey 2010

In the second year of this survey, we understand not only mobile phone usage habits, but also
the favorite apps of consumers, the most desirable wishlist in a phone, and much more.

Survey Highlights

• Nokia continues to remain the highest owned mobile phone brand, and a likely future
purchase.
• Airtel continues to remain the largest mobile service provider.
• SMS continues to remain the most popular use of mobile phones
• The number of people likely to buy a Nokia in the future is far has dropped by 15% as
compared to last year.
• Live video chatting and conferencing is on the wishlist of a lot of mobile users for the
future.
• Gmail is the most popular application on smartphones, followed by Opera browser.
• 50% of the respondents wish to change their mobile service provider without changing
their number.

This is the second year that we're doing our mobile usage survey, to understand mobile usage
patterns of Indian consumers. We used the same questions as last time, so as to look for
changing trends in mobile usage over a year. Plus, we've added more questions to address new
things that have cropped up in the mobile space over the past year.

We received over 900 responses to the survey, which have been divided into three parts—Current
mobile usage preferences, satisfaction levels with mobile service providers, and future mobile
preferences. Presented here are the results.

1. Mobile Phone Usage Patterns

Here, we tried to determine which mobile phone brands are popular amongst Indian consumers,
which are their favorite apps, what they use their mobile phones for the most, and much more.

a. Mobile Brands Owned

In the last one year, we've seen a lot of new mobile phone brands emerge, which have caused a
major reshuffle in the current ownership rankings. The top spot however, continues to remain with
Nokia, which is owned by 60% of the respondents. In fact, this year, 60% of the respondents said
that they owned a Nokia, as against 58% last year.

The second and third highest owned mobile brands however have changed. Samsung, which was
at a distant sixth position last year has climbed all the way up to the second spot this year,
pushing Sony Ericsson down to the third spot. Sony Ericsson was the second highest owned
mobile brand till last year. The Blackberry, which was nowhere last year has come to the fifth
position this year, throwing Motorola to the sixth position this year. Motorola was the third highest
owned mobile brand last year.

The low cost brand, Micromax was also nowhere in the rankings in our last mobile usage survey,
but it has climbed up to the seventh position this year, which is quite an achievement. LG's
position has changed from seventh last time to eighth this time, but the percentage of users
owning a LG mobile has doubled from 3% to 6%. HTC, Spice, and Fly mobile continue to retain
similar ownership figures as last year. Apple, despite its popularity is only owned by 2% of our
respondents.

The interesting thing to observe about the mobile ownership results is that the ownership
percentages for the mobile phone brands that came up in our last year's survey hasn't changed
this year. If Sony Ericsson was owned by 16% of the respondents last year, it is owned by 14%
people this year. But, other mobile phone brands have made a lot of noise and increased their
respective market shares over one year.

This actually reflects the state of the mobile phone market, which despite getting overcrowded is
not showing any signs of slowdown, because there are sufficient buyers around. We found that
51% of the users were mostly satisfied with their mobile phones, while another 29% were
completely satisfied. So overall, 80% of the users don't have too many complaints with the mobile
phones they own. Only about 6% of Nokia users were not so satisfied with their mobile phone.

b. What people do with their mobile phones?

Mobile phones have become so feature rich that making phone calls is just another function they
provide. The basic applications that people use their mobile phones are the same as what we
received last year. The biggest usage for mobile phones, besides making phone calls is
sending/receiving SMS. This is followed by - listening to music, taking pictures, and accessing the
Internet. The rest of the usage apps can be seen in the graph.
Internet and Email access from the mobile have gone up significantly as compared to our last
survey's results. While only 37% of the users accessed email from their mobile in our last survey,
the figure stands at 49% this year. Likewise, 66% of the users said they accessed the Internet
from their mobiles this year, as compared to 56% last year.

c. The most popular Mobile OS

Symbian continues to be the dominant OS for the mobile phones in India. However, the awareness
levels among users about which OS is their mobile phones running is pretty low. That's why, 35%
of the users didn't even answer this question, while 29% said Symbian, another 13% were
running Windows, while 7% were on a Blackberry.
 d. Favorite Mobile apps

The good news is that about 47% of the users download apps on their mobile phones, but the bad
news is that another 32% didn't respond to this question, while another 20% responded in the
negative. So, essentially, there are a good 52% of the people who probably don't download apps
on their mobile phones.

There could be many reasons for this, which we didn't get into this time. We did however, try and
find out the most popular apps on mobile phones. 21% of the respondents use Gmail from their
mobile phone, while another 19% have Opera web browser installed. Another 14% use Facebook
from their mobile phone, while another 10% use Google Maps. Plus, there are small pockets of
people who use Twitter, Snaptu, Nimbuzz, Fring, etc on their mobile phone.

II. Satisfaction with Mobile Service Provider

Unlike handsets and mobile apps, the number of mobile service providers is very few and can be
counted on your fingertips. Amongst them, Airtel seems to have the highest current ownership,
with 38% of our respondents saying that they were using its services.
Vodafone was at number two, with 25% users, followed by MTNL/BSNL at 12%. The pattern is
more or less similar as compared to last year.

Here again, about 77% of the respondents were mostly or completely satisfied with their current
mobile service provider. But this satisfaction doesn't necessarily mean that people are not open to
changing their service provider. In fact, we found that a majority (77%) of the people have been

using their mobile service provider for several years.

The one thing that prevents most people form changing is that they would have to change their
mobile number, and then share it with all their contacts again. So when asked whether they would
like to retain their mobile number, but change their service provider, only 37% didn't want to do
either.

32% wanted to change to a different mobile service provider while retaining their mobile number,
but didn't want to pay anything for the change. Another 18% were even willing to pay to change
their service provider, and retain their current mobile number. So number portability should
definitely cause a reshuffling in mobile service providers. How effective it would actually be
remains to be seen.

III. Future Mobile Preferences

Besides understanding the current market outlook, it's also important to understand what the
future looks like in the mobile world. That's why, we tried to determine which mobile brands are
people likely to purchase in the near future, what they look for while buying, their wishlist of
special features, and much more. Here's what we found.

a. Future mobile preference

Here again, the new players in the market are impacting the picture of future mobile preferences.
So while Nokia continues to be the top most brand of mobile phones that people are likely to
purchase in the future, there's been a drop of 15% over last year.

So while last year, 49% of our survey's respondents were likely to buy a Nokia mobile, this time,
only 34% are likely to. Likewise, Sony Ericsson's preference has also dropped by 8% over last
year. Samsung, Blackberry, and Apple continue to grow in popularity, as more people are opting to
buy them as compared to our last year's survey results.

b. Reason for choosing a mobile

Features and value for money are the two key factors that people consider while purchasing a
mobile phone. 35% of the users look for features in their mobile phone, while 32% consider value
for money.

Another 16% look for business features. Other aspects like great looks, multimedia, etc come
much later.
Though features and value for money are both important, the amount of weightage users give to
each varies dramatically. So while 55% users rate value for money as the most important
parameter while buying a phone, only 16% consider the richness of features in a mobile. Another
11% look for features and functionality while buying a mobile phone.

Gone are the days for QWERTY phones, or so say our survey's respondents. The future is all about
touch screen phones, with or without a keypad.

c. Wishlist from mobile phones

It looks like 3G is really going to become popular in India, because the top application that users
would like in their mobile phones is to do live video chatting and conferencing. So even if mobiles
have this capability, it can't be used unless there's sufficient bandwidth.
So with 3G coming in, it would be interesting to see what happens. Another wishlist people have
from their mobile phones is to be able to watch live TV, which again would require bandwidth.

d. Frequency of changing mobiles and budget

The average life of a mobile phone continues to remain 2 years, just like last year. About 44% of
users change their mobile phones every two years, while only 24% change about every year.
Average amount that people are willing to spend on their mobile phones is split between two price
categories. 31% of the users are willing to spend 5-10K, while another 27% can spend 10-15K.
Another 15% can spend 15-20k.
About the survey respondents

Like last year, this time's mobile usage survey was also conducted online. We received 950+
responses from 150+ cities in India. Out of these, 66% of the respondents were from the top 8
cities of India, including metros, while the rest were from Tier II and other smaller cities.

The respondents were from different groups, but 72% were between the age of 20 to 40 years,
25% were in the 40+ age bracket, while the remaining were below 20 years of age.
75% of the respondents were working professionals at various levels in the organization, right
from executive to senior management. Another 13% were running their own business, and were
self-employed.

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About Living Digital (www.LD2.in)

Living Digital is India’s leading gadget advisor and technology Guide online. From Mobiles, Cameras, LCD TVs,
Cameras and more, one can find buying guides, in-depth reviews, sneak peek into new gadgets and the latest
news from the Gadget world in India.