Indian Smartphone Users Move Towards Data, Games and Content, Away From SMS

Actress Gul Panag helps launch another smartphone into India. (Image source: thehindu.com)

A new report by Nielsen India reveals that a seismic shift is happening in mobile usage in the country: Indian smartphone users are now spending more time browsing content (and using more data) than more conventional activities such as voice calls or SMS.

It marks a big step into the arena of apps, mobile gaming, and content browsing in India. Of the average 2.5 hours per day that people in the nation spend tapping and prodding their smartphones, Nielsen found that…

72 percent of their time [is] spent on activities such as gaming, entertainment, apps and internet related content. Only 28 percent of their time is now used for voice calls and text messaging.

The shift is even more noticeable in younger users. Here are the five other key findings in addition to the one I just mentioned:

• Younger smartphone users (15 to 25-year olds) spend more than three hours per day on their phones, and spend 60 percent of that time on entertainment and browsing

• 68 percent of 15 to 24-year olds used a chat app within the last month, as compared to 42 percent for the 31+ folks.

• Data usage for 3G users was close to 44 percent more than 2G users

• An Android user installs an average of 19 apps in a month compared to ten apps for a Symbian user

• 84 percent of Android users played a game in the last month compared to 59 percent for Symbian users

So, basically, even older users now spend about three-times longer finger-swiping then jibber-jabbing, which is good news for smartphone makers that are popular in the country, such as Nokia and BlackBerry.

But lets not forget that hundreds of millions of Indian phone users have humbler devices, and neither a 2G nor 3G connection. Which is why Indian start-ups and major telcos alike are still pushing forward some neat message-oriented services, such as SMSGyan, the SMS-based search engine, as well as SMS GupShup, India’s Twitter-like messaging service.