[April 20, 2011]

As Smartphone Usage Rises, India SMBs Are Set to Spend US$173M In 2011

With the world spending more on smart phones, India SMBs are as well. With 54% of India medium businesses (MBs, companies with 100-999 employees) currently using these devices and a clutch of innovations on the horizon, smartphone penetration and spending are poised for growth. In 2011, India SMBs (companies with less than 1000 employees) are set to grow that spending to $173M, according to New York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc.

"At present many smartphone users in India do not use the data services that these phones offer," says Priti Verma, Research Analyst at AMI-Partners, Bangalore. "Insufficient data bandwidth is hindering usage of these services. With the advent of 3G spectrum we are observing an increase in the coverage that phone companies are able to offer and in turn smartphone penetration levels and data plan usage are on the rise," continues Verma.

Smartphone vendors can improve demand for smart phones by continuing to reduce prices as well as offering more and varied plan options. "Users prefer using only one device for presentations, email or downloading information," adds Verma. "This eliminates the need to have multiple devices such as a projector, computer and a phone when conducting normal business and personal transactions."

The landscape of mobile internet usage has changed to such an extent that in some cases the first internet experience is now through a mobile phone rather than a PC. "Search, financial services, sports, online trading and entertainment get a big share of smartphone usage," says Verma, "and people spend more time on smartphone entertainment than talking or sending messages."

Currently India SMBs' installed base of smartphones is less than one million with the maximum penetration of these devices understandably in the professional services vertical. Data show that India SMBs are planning increased spending on smartphone data plan services. With many more companies recognizing the advantages of using social networking, podcasting and micro-blogging, it seems natura that the adoption of the smart phone is on the rise throughout India.

As India continues to move towards a more mobile workforce, the smart phone will become an essential tool that all employees will require. With the improvement in the quality of navigation maps and simplification of licensing terms, phones with GPS capabilities are expected to become more in demand. And the emergence of open source operating systems and 2GHz processors will also help also boost smart phones. Looking forward, all of these changes together will forge a new paradigm of a true collaborative ecosystem.

Related Studies

AMI's Global IT Forecast Model provides an authoritative view of IT adoption and spending patterns in the SMB space across 28 IT sectors and 29 countries, with roll ups to regional and worldwide views. Updated in Q2 and Q4 each year, the Global Model provides ever-increasing strategic market planning value via expanding geographic and IT sector coverage. Sector-specific adoption and spending patterns are further broken out by industry-standard employee size and vertical market categories. Products and services covered include established and emerging hardware, software, applications, and business process solutions.

AMI's extensive surveys among SMB IT decision makers, one-on-one in-depth SMB interviews, combined with country-specific economic and industry analysis provide the most comprehensive SMB-focused strategic market planning tool to the IT vendor community. Based on AMI's annual surveys of SMBs across the world, our studies track a broad spectrum of issues pertaining to budgets, purchase behaviors, decision influencers, channel preferences, outsourcing, service, and support. Also covered are detailed firmographics and critically important technology attitudes and strategic planning priorities. These data point to key opportunities and messaging hot buttons for vendors and service providers seeking to match their offerings to SMB market requirements.

For more information about our studies, AMI-Partners, or our global SMB research, call 212-944-5100, e-mail [email protected], or visit us at www.ami-partners.com.

About Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc.

AMI-Partners specializes in IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services strategy, venture capital, and actionable market intelligence - with a strong focus on global small and medium businesses (SMBs), and extending into large enterprises and home-based businesses. The AMI-Partners mission is to empower clients for success with the highest quality data, business strategy perspectives and "go-to-market" solutions. Led by Andy Bose, the firm has built a world-class management team with deep experience cutting across IT, telecommunications and business services sectors in established and emerging markets.

AMI-Partners has helped shape the go-to-market SMB strategies of more than 150 leading IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services companies. The firm is well known for its IT and Internet adoption-based segmentation of the SMB markets; its annual retainership services based on global SMB tracking surveys in more than 25 countries; and its proprietary database of SMBs and SMB channel partners in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The firm invests significantly in collecting survey-based information from several thousand SMBs annually, and is considered the premier source for global SMB trends and analysis.

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