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According to the report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International, the number of mobile internet users has witnessed a steady rise, with 159 million mobile internet users in October. This is estimated to reach 173 million by the end of December.
In October, there were 119 million users accessing the Internet on mobile devices, in urban India. Rural India is not that far behind in this regard with a base of 40 million mobile Internet users in October 2013.
With e-ticketing one of the largest segment in the e-commerce pie in India, mobile bookings are expected to see a surge in 2015.
MakeMyTrip, an online travel company, says that more than one third of their total online monthly unique visitors comes via mobile, which now represents 24% of all online transactions.
Rajesh Magow, Co-founder & CEO-India, MakeMyTrip feels that mobile will continue to drive the growth of the OTA industry.
"Mobile bookings will soon overtake bookings through other devices. SMS/messaging-platform based booking services are taking off in China, and perhaps a developer or entrepreneur will find a way to create a market for this in India. Mobile Technologies will propel e-commerce and travel buying experience in the coming years," said Magow.
Indian Railways, which has the largest share in online booking, too is witnessing a surge in mobile booking.
According to sources at IRCTC, 8,000-9,000 bookings are made through the mobile ticket booking app. The numbers though are still less compared to 600,000 tickets being booked online, but officials say they expect them to grow.
"So far our mobile app has been downloaded 15,00,000 times on Windows platform, on Android it has been downloaded 10,00,000 times. In a months time we will be launching app for the iOS platform too," said a senior official on condition of anonymity.
In case of MakeMyTrip, mobile has become a significant channel of access beyond the top four metros. Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Chandigarh contribute the highest non-metro traffic on MakeMyTrip app. Mobile contribution to traffic (visitors) grew from 20% in 2013 to 33%.
Pranav Bhasin, Vice President- Online Products, MakeMyTrip, at a recently concluded Mobile Internet Conference 2014, said: "Mobile Internet has become the game changer in travel industry. Mobile today is fastest growing channel in India and more than 13% of our total transaction happens via mobile. Lots of our growth is coming from tier 2 & tier 3 cities that too via mobile."
In case of MakeMyTrip, mobile platform is also the preferred platform for booking hotels. Almost 52% of domestic hotel bookings done through mobile are made 0-1 day before travel (compared to 27% on Web)
Magow also points out that the other reason for mobile apps to be successful is the availability of local content.
"Vernacularization will take centre-stage in 2015, in line with the philosophy of offering customized service and experiences. There is tremendous potential in vernacular content and MakeMyTrip is also investing in creating vernacular travel-booking services. In October, we introduced India's first flight-booking service in Hindi on our mobile site and we will extend these vernacular services to other languages such as Gujarati, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam in 2015."
