A look at India – the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world

India has been the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world for quite some time now. There are already 250 million mobile phone users in India and the number gets increased by 6 million every month, thanks to new users. There are a few reasons behind this impressive growth.

1. Indian economy is on a roll and has had an impressive growth over the past few years. This has increased the purchasing power of the people significantly, especially that of the middle class people. As a result, the 30 million middle class people in India are the target customer segment for mobile companies now.

2. The price range of mobile phones is quite big. You can get low-end mobile phones in the $20 - $30 price range and at the same time you can get high-end mobile phones in the $600 - $800 price range. So, whether you belong to the super rich category, middle class, or lower middle class category, you can get a mobile phone which fits into your budget.

3. There are several major mobile operators in India and there is intense competition in the market. Almost all of them have slashed their call charges, text message charges, and offer a lot of value added services. What this means to the user is, not only can he get a handset at an affordable rate, but he can also afford to keep his phone charges within his budget every month. This has led to more and more people buying mobile phones.

Recent reports predict that India will have a whopping 500 million mobile users by 2010. This is the reason why mobile advertising is considered the next big thing in the Indian market.

Though mobile advertising by third party advertisers is yet to become popular, several mobile operators are already doing it successfully. Notable players like Bharti Airtel, BSNL, Tata Indicom, Reliance, and Vodafone regularly send text messages to their users regarding latest offers, new plans, and other issues.

That said, a few big players have already tried their hands on mobile advertising through third party advertisers and have had a good response. Recently, Hindustan Lever and Coca Cola launched mobile advertising campaigns promoting their products and have had good response rate so far. Since Indians are very active in using features like text message, MMS, and mobile internet, mobile advertisers have tons of choices to come up with personalized mobile advertising campaigns.

All in all, India will be a market to watch out for in the next few years as far as mobile advertising is concerned.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

1 comment.

Pringo partners with NINJA Mobile

Pringo, the social networking solutions provider, has joined hands with NINJA Mobile, a mobile advertising specialist, to make its applications more appealing to mobile users by introducing new features.

From now on, mobile users will be able to access websites built on Pringo’s platform better than ever. They will be able to view content, post new content, and share their favorite content on the go with their friends through their mobile phones. Also, advertisers will now be able to send targeted, relevant ads, including video content, to users through the social networking sites built on Pringo’s platform.

This, in my opinion, benefits all three parties involved in the equation. First, the website owner will be able to monetize his site better, advertisers will be able to reach their target customer base better, and the end user will find it easier to access social networking sites from his mobile phone.

Mobile social networking is making its presence felt fast and companies like Pringo have realized its importance and started working on it. If you remember, Pringo signed a similar deal with a mobile marketing firm called Mozes some time back.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones, Mobile Social Networking.

0 comments.

Mobile phones in India to come preloaded with ads?

With a mobile user base of around 250 million and growing, India continues to be the hottest market for mobile phone manufacturers. However, the rates of mobile phones have gone down sharply over the years. There are two main reasons for this.

First, the target customer segment of mobile phone manufacturers as far as India is concerned is the middle class people. According to surveys, the number of middle class people in India is estimated close to 300 million. In order to target this segment, mobile phone manufacturers have introduced new models which cost very little. And since the middle class also happens to be the most active customer segment in India, the low-priced models usually sell well, leaving the mobile manufacturers with no option but to continue with them.

Second, there is hellacious competition in the market. Both CDMA and GSM phone manufacturers are hell bent on capturing the biggest market share and as a result, they’ve cut down their prices sharply.

As a result, you can now get a mobile phone for just over $20 in India. Due to this reason, mobile phone manufacturers are looking for different ways to make money. One such way is mobile phone advertising.

Already, Nokia is planning to generate revenue through its mobile internet platform Ovi. Also, some of the mobile phone manufacturers in India are in talks with UK based mobile media firm Affle.

Especially, Affle’s SMS2.0, a mobile application, seems to have caught a lot of attention. This application adds a lot of new features like color, graphics, signature, and emoticons to an otherwise ordinary text messaging service. When the customer sends a text message using this application, there will be an ad at the bottom of the message and a full-screen ad while the message is being sent. Affle is also planning to add features like social networking and mobile search to this application.

Some of the big names in India including Airtel are interested in this technology and might soon incorporate it in their handsets. There are plans of releasing handsets which will have this application preinstalled. However, mobile manufactures might want to test the waters and see the user response for such handsets before taking any major decision.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

0 comments.

Basics of mobile marketing

The New Media Institute recently released a report on mobile marketing which had some interesting facts and very good points.

The report says that a lot of major brands in the US are into mobile marketing and their success rate has been very good so far. It also says that when done the right way, mobile marketing can get you very good results which will be way better than the results that you get from traditional advertising methods. One of the main reasons why all these big brands choose mobile marketing is the ability to connect to people. Mobile marketing can help you target your customer segment accurately – something that traditional advertising methods often fail at.

The report also states three important things about mobile marketing.

First, you need to offer something to people in order to make them join your mobile community. You need to convince them that there is a benefit in joining your community. You can do this by offering free products, discount coupons, special access to exclusive content, and so on.

Second, you need to make sure you respect their privacy. You need to contact them only when they want you to, not whenever you want to.

Third, relevancy of your campaign. You should get to know about people’s preferences and target your mobile marketing campaign accordingly. You cannot send an ad on KFC to a PETA activist. So, you need to make sure you send relevant ads in order to get response from the other end.

Well; I think that pretty much sums up everything. Mobile marketing campaign, when done the right way, can be the magic bullet big brands are looking for.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

0 comments.

No Country for Old Men

A report released by Deloitte Touché, a leading consulting company, had some interesting points about mobile advertising and mobile marketing.

As a rule of thumb, mobile advertisers always connect to the younger ones – teenagers and people in their early 20s. It is widely believed that the young ones make use of mobile phones to the maximum possible extent and hence mobile marketing is generally meant for the young. But aren’t we missing something so obvious here?

Young ones, though largely mobile-savvy, don’t have a regular, disposable income. In other words, they cannot afford to spend as they wish. Most of them are dependent on part-time jobs or their parents for money – which means, no matter how good your mobile advertising campaign is, they can afford only so much.

But the case of boomers is not like this. They have a high disposable income and they are in fact the target customer base for many industries around the world. Also, people in the 30-50 age group are more loyal to carriers and phone makers. In other words, they stick to a particular carrier and a particular mobile maker as they can identify themselves with them. But youngsters, especially teenagers, don’t do that. They change their handsets often and jump from one carrier to another in search of new, cool features. What this means to carriers and advertisers is – you can’t expect something called customer retention.

Duncan Stewart, one of the authors of this report, said that targeting only the youth market may not prove to be a successful strategy in the long run.

I think the important reason behind targeting the youth market is the fact that they are the early adopters of new technologies. So, it becomes easier to appeal to them. But then, the report says it clearly – there is significant potential in the boomer market. Mobile marketers, are you listening?

PS: To those who know me, the title of this post shouldn’t come as a surprise at all.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

0 comments.