The smartphones market is expected to grow 53% y-o-y in 2010

With the smartphones market gaining immense growth momentum, the biggest
contributor to this trend are the social networking applications. The market is
expected to grow 53% y-o-y in 2010 to reach 76.7 mn units and is projected to
easily surpass 100 mn units in 2011.

The major reason for this tremendous growth is the reduction in the cost
price leading to more people using this application.

Mobile social networking gained strength few years back when smartphones
introduced these applications for professionals in the business world, keeping
in mind their mobility and their requirement of accessing the Internet. But in
the past three to four years, smartphones are made available to almost everybody
leading to a growth in revenues.

Around 14.5 mn users accessed social networking sites via applications. That
number is up by 240% y-o-y. Around 30 mn phone users logged on to social
networking sites via mobile web browsers in the first quarter of 2010, up 94%
from the same time period in 2009. This application on mobile phone has made
access to these sites handy, convenient and comfortable.

Thirty percent of the users access networking sites from their mobile phones
alone from India.

According to a Social Media survey conducted by India Biz News & Research
Services (INRS) in major cities of India, Facebook took the first position in
its usage. Even as more and more people are joining the online networking space
for professional reasons, almost 90% of the users join such sites to follow or
stay in touch with their friends. With social networking applications on their
mobile, the usage of these sites has increased by considerable percentage.

In recent times, many service providers have come up with unlimited data
plans and making data cheaper for users to use smartphones and their
applications more conveniently and comfortably, thus strengthening the
smartphones market more visibly.

Although growth in application usage on smartphones continues to grab the
limelight in the mobile market, the audience using their mobile browser remains
larger and is growing quickly with the blink of an eye.

Akanksha Singh

vadmail@cybermedia.co.in