20 Million Indians Prefer News on Their Mobiles

Bangalore: India is one of the fastest growing mobile phone markets in the world, along with China. As per a survey more and more mobile users are switching to Internet enabled feature phones and smartphones, and the mobile phone is turning out to be a serious competitor to the television and newspaper, reported First Post.

The survey carried out by ViziSense, an online audience and ad measurement platform says that access to email (99 percent) and social media (95 percent) are the primary drivers of mobile internet, due to which consumption of content is beginning to shift in favor of mobiles and tablets.

The online survey (Internet users with mobile phones) has recorded responses from 2,024 users who access Internet through their mobile phones.

As per the findings the categories which see frequent or daily consumption on mobile Internet include news, games and entertainment, travel, education and search with almost 50 percent Mobile Internet users accessing this content through their cell phones.

Other key findings from the survey were that 87 percent of all mobile internet users in India (estimated at 4.8 crores by IAMAI in their August 2011 Mobile Internet in India report), are online on their cell phones every day. Almost half of these users go online via their cell phones every 2-3 hours and the time of these visits is often more than an hour.

Mobile Internet users are also easing into mobile e-commerce with almost 80 percent of the users having performed some form of financial transaction through their mobile phone like payment of utility bills, purchase of products and services. On the other hand, 28 percent of mobile internet users have even used ‘mobile money’.