Go to the profile of Ravi Vyas
Ravi Vyas
Founder & CEO @puremetricsio, organiser @blrdroid, #MobileEvangelist, curious about #growth #Saas #Analytics. x-@moengage, @vserv @techjini

The Indian Mobile Internet Growth Conundrum

Here are some conflicting numbers for the Indian’s Eco system.

Note: I have had this in my drafts for close to 4 months now, some number may be off

The high end

The number of mobile Internet users in India is expected to grow over 55 per cent to 371 million by June this year according to IAMAI

Numbers based on Telco Data

  • Airtel Mobile Internet Subscribers — 35M ( Earnings Report Q4 2015, under Mobile Broadband costumers)
  • Airtel market share is around 32%

Extrapolated Mobile Internet Usage — 112M

Note: Airtel’s Mobile Internet base grew from 19M a year ago.

Social Network Based Data

  • Facebook Potential Reach India (Age–13+) : 146,000,000 people
  • Facebook user base was around 125 million users in India in 2015, which mean FB grew around 16% in 1 year.
  • BGR India has learnt that there are now more than 100 million active users in India alone
  • At least 97 per cent of smartphone users in India use communication apps every day, with WhatsApp being the app of choice for 96 per cent of them, according to a study by Jana

Both the numbers put India’s mobile internet under 150M.

Data from Hike

We still have a lot of work to do in India. The real internet user count is less than 200 million, and we know from our data that only 15% of this use a meaningful amount. Another 35% are on sachet packs, and remaining are accidental users. It’s a very early market.

Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/53732027.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Another point to note, Smartphone shipments have grown by 25% in 2015, but in 2014 shipments grew by 80%, so the shipments growth is slowing down. In 2015 around 100M Smartphones where shipped, in 2014 it was ~80M & in 2013 it was ~44M.

Frankly I am not sure how quickly the Indian mobile ecosystem is growing. The high end is at 371 M users, the low is close to 1/3 rd of that. Also I am not sure if India will continue to grow at the rate we historically saw. My thesis is that most folks who could purchase a smartphone did, and now growth will slow down as neither phones are getting cheaper or India’s purchasing power increasing exponentially. Unfortunately I don’t have data to back this up, then again this seems to the trend worldwide based on the world economic forum.

What are your thoughts? Are you aware of some other relevant numbers? You are more than welcome to tear down my theories, it would only be a positive sign.

Photo credit: Meanest Indian via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND