Mobile Internet penetration in India

Mobile Internet, means different things to different people, and the answer depends on who you ask. People may relate the term “Mobile Internet” to a wide variety of service, technology, device or access mechanism. Fundamentally, it is Internet-access with mobility. The most common usage of this term however, refers to users who access Internet using their cellular mobile handsets, excluding those who treat their mobile handsets as a modem connected to their laptops.

Let’s take some apples and oranges first. Inspite of the fact that in India PCs & internet connectivity for end-users have been around for longer when compared to mobile phone  & cellular services, the reality as most of us know today is that the number of mobile phones in India, far supasses those of PCs and especially those that are connected to the Internet in some form. Of course, not all mobile handsets currently in use in this country could be used to connect to the Internet, however the number of GPRS enabled phones (from the GSM camp) in use can hardly be called insignificant. Similarly in the CDMA camp, for a while most handsets are data-capable, although some are capable of browsing only operator’s portal, and not reach out to the general Internet. Even with GRSP enabled handsets, of the fraction of total subscribers having such hand-sets only a smaller fraction really subscribes to GPRS data services to connect to the Internet, while another small fraction uses the operator portal for accessing content. So, the question is, why is mobile-internet penetration so low in India ? Is this in-line with the global trends of mobile-internet penetration and market uptake ? What are the reasons for the level of penetration in this country ? What could change or improve the scenario ? Today we briefly expore and try to find answers for these question.

The low penetration of Mobile Internet could probably be attributed to the following reasons:-

1. Handset capabilities.
   1. Small screen-size,
   2. Small keypad. Things like T9 / iTAP are probably okay for short messages, but for anything longer or with a mix of alphabets, numerals and symbols — they are still fairly painful. Even QWERTY keypads with minute keys make typing very difficult.
   3. Browser availablity,
   4. Browser ergonomics,
   5. Processing power & memory,
   6. Multi-media capabilities etc.
2. Connectivity experience.
   1. Bandwidth available,
   2. QoS (very variable bandwidth availability, variable latencies etc.),
   3. Availability,
   4. Network Coverage
3. Handset costs, for handsets which support somewhat usable browsing experience, are still 10K+, so not for the masses.
4. Compelling content & that too at a price that people can afford or are willing to pay.
5. Connectivity cost.

And IMHO, the reasons are more-or-less in that order of severity.

Note that 1st and 4th are a generic problem, world-wide (though many people don’t want us to believe that Compelling-content is an issue). Points 2nd, 3rd & 5th, are specifically relevant in the Indian context where next-generation high-speed mobile-internet connectivity is still a pipe-dream.

However, one feels very optimistic in this country because, once the spectral wars have died down and regulatory bodies brought some sense of semblence, the roll-outs of high-speed mobile networks should start happening. A lot will depend on the what price-points the handset manufacturers are able to offer. Volumes can do many tricks. Once more capable, mobile-internet friendly handsets become available at prices that people can start feeling very compelled to replace their current handsets, a mass market for mobile-Internet should crack open. Given the kind of love we Indians have for cricket, movies, songs etc., Entertrainment would probably be a big driver.