Telecom Lead India: Over 500 million smartphones with a
retail price of $100 or less will be in use worldwide and high proportion of it
will come from India in 2012, predicts Deloitte.
Growing sales of $100 smartphones are likely to cause
downward pressure on prices for the whole supply chain.
Recently, Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal urged mobile phone makers like Nokia, Samsung,
Research in Motion and others to float a tender for 100 million smartphones and
bring down average prices below the $50-barrier.
Deloitte says that low-cost tablets war will accelerate in 2012 with consumer
demand for tablets to grow further. However, enterprise demand is likely to
grow even faster, albeit from a lower base.
3G enabled tablets might see a greater adoption in urban
and semi-urban areas. Competition in the low-cost tablet space is set to
intensify even further in the next few months, however new entrants in the
tablet market will have to prove worth of the product quality over price
value.
Low-cost devices and data plans will induce data
explosion. Data consumption will go up substantially aided by competition,
technological advancement and reduction in per gigabyte prices. The business
driver for operators is the increased revenue expected from 3G services due to
growing middle and upper class wireless customers who are willing to pay more
for the new mobile services.
In 2012, efforts from industry verticals like healthcare,
banking, and education will strengthen to adopt mobile as a service delivery
mechanism in the remote areas.
Deloitte notes that leading IT companies, mobile device
manufacturers, telecom service providers, government have acknowledged
education, healthcare and banking as the priority sectors. It is the opportune
time for partnership between telecom and telecom dependent” industry sectors.
Deloitte also predicts that the next wave of telecom
growth will emerge from rural India and operators will increasingly use the
voice platform as well as localized content to ensure relevance and widespread
adoption in rural zones.
