With mobility on the rise among India SMBs, the market has witnessed a significant shift towards adoption of mobile devices and services such as smart phones, tablets, wireless cards, data plans, and hosted applications. More than two-thirds of India SMBs (companies having <1000 employees) own at least one smart phone or tablet, and almost half plan to purchase more devices in the next year.
“The availability of low-cost smart phones and tablets has fuelled demand among India SMBs–as has the launch of competitively priced 3G data plans,” said Neha Jalan, Mumbai-based Senior Associate at AMI-Partners. “The India government has proactively driven the launch of Aakash, an Android-based tablet computer originally projected as the $35 computer (the price for which has since gone up slightly). Also driving this demand are various other devices from both PC and telecom vendors priced to range between the Aakash and Apple’s iPad (considered to be the best-known and most expensive tablet in the market)” Jalan further added.
Smart phones have become an issue of strategic importance to the majority of India SMBs. Over half of these businesses would consider replacing desk phones with smart phones, thereby providing advanced calling features to remote/mobile employees. “India SMBs have traditionally shown a penchant for staying connected to partners,” said Jalan. “This attitude is translating into an increased adoption of smart phones, which offer the twin benefits of anytime, anywhere voice and data connectivity,” she further added.
Primary users of smart phones and tablets tend to be owners/senior management who are frequently traveling and therefore rely on these devices for basic applications such as email, contact and calendar information in order to be continuously connected.
India telecom service providers are eagerly awaiting both this increased acceptance of mobile devices among company employees and the widespread adoption of sophisticated applications such as business application solutions and industry-specific applications. India’s cash-strapped telcos are eager to increase average revenues per user (ARPU) as cost-conscious SMBs move to higher-usage data plans and increase purchases of smart phone applications offered by these vendors.
AMI's ‘2011-12 India SMB Mobility Landscape, Opportunity Assessment & Outlook’ study delivers insights on how India SMBs are adjusting and adapting to the ever increasing mobile environment. From horizontal applications such as productivity (spreadsheets, presentations) and UC (audio/web/video conferencing) to Line of Business (LOB) applications such as finance and logistics, SMBs are using smartphones and tablets to drive productivity and business velocity.
This study also examines the expanding pool of authorized tablet/smartphone users beyond CEOs and other senior staff; corporate policies/preferences and service/support provisioning for mobile devices; device selection criteria and purchase channel preferences.