According to research firm Nielsen, Indians are increasingly taking to smartphones and the number of such devices in the country stood at 40 million in 2012. And almost 50 per cent of smartphone users are below the age of 25 years.
A study conducted by the research firm shows that the exponential growth in the usage of smartphones is driven by a desire among users to stay connected and have instant access to social networking sites. Further, decreasing device and data costs, coupled with a wide range of features that smartphones offer, encourage consumers to replace their traditional cell phones for handsets which support more functionality.
As per the findings of the survey, users prefer mobile devices that operate on the Android operating system. While Symbian usage is also high in India, Windows, BlackBerry and iOS devices each only have single-digit market shares. Moreover, tablet ownership among Indians is set to increase.
Further, the results show that voice calls and messaging account for only 25 per cent of smartphone usage whereas multimedia, games, applications and internet browsing command 65 per cent share. Further, games emerged as the most popular category among paid applications, with about three out of five users (58 per cent) subscribing to games.
Other popular paid application categories among smartphone users include chat and instant messaging (53 per cent) and streaming music (45 per cent).
