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It’s a great time to be a part of the Indian telecom sector, feels Ajay Gupta, vice president and head-strategy and marketing, Ericsson India. He believes that apart from being receptive to new technology and devices, consumers want a high speed mobile data experience and a timely resolution to their issues, which needs to be prioritised.
A leading global player in the ICT space with offerings in broadband, mobility and cloud, Ericsson is aggressively working with its customers to tap into emerging telecommunication trends and make the most of it. In India, the company estimates mobile broadband data traffic per user per month to increase from 475 MB in 2012, to around 900 MB per month by 2017. Edited excerpts from an interview:
In your opinion, how different is India from other developing markets when it comes to communications and information sharing? What more does the Indian user expect and need, apart from latest technology and smartphones?
The Indian consumer today is very receptive to new technology. According to Ericsson ConsumerLab Country Study 2013, around 30 per cent of Indian consumers indicated that they find new technology exciting and use it as much as they can. This rate is higher as compared to markets like Indonesia (19 per cent) or Russia (20 per cent).
The data usage of Indian consumers is following the same pattern as that in the developed world, though there are some unique attributes that we observe right now. The Indian user is using more social media apps than video but we believe it will change over time with a more consistent 3G experience and the video download becoming faster.
Apart from being receptive to new technology and devices, consumers want a high speed mobile data experience and a timely resolution to their issues. Operators need to prioritise these areas in order to meet expectations.
What are some of the growth trends that you see in the ICT market in India? How is Ericsson trying to capitalise on these trends?
We see strong growth trends fuelling the ICT market going ahead. Overall, data traffic on the networks is picking up and this trend will continue. On the consumer side, the data consumption has increased, driven by social media applications, app downloads, and video. The B2B offerings based on mobility, broadband and cloud solutions suited for some key industry verticals will have a transformational impact on these industries. Some of the industries to drive this demand are from automotive, transport and fleet management, education, health, governance, energy, digitisation of media and so on, which are going to get transformed through the use of ICT. This will require high performing and reliable networks, and IT systems that can help operator become agile and efficient.
Ericsson is a leading player in the ICT space with offering in broadband, mobility and cloud. We are helping customers globally transform their businesses to tap into these emerging needs and we are bringing this experience to our customers in India as well.
Given that the data growth has started to pick up, and as many say we are likely to witness an exponential growth in data consumption, what do you think are the top priorities of the operators today?
We have seen in other markets that data starts to pick up slowly and once it picks up speed, it is like a hockey stick. India may turn out to be no different. The data is growing in the networks every day and the number of subscribers using data has also increased. With increased data traffic, a key priority is to monetise this traffic into profitable revenue for which timely and flexible provisioning of service and innovative monetisation mechanisms is critical. The idea is to have networks and systems that can drive “time to market”.
Second, with increase in data penetration, consumer experience will start to take front seat and operators will have to start thinking in terms of end-to-end customer experience -- which means from the initial purchase cycle to service and support to offering high performing network to deliver great usage experience. The high performing network will require removing bottlenecks for data performance in access, transport and core.
At the same time the data production cost will have to be kept low. The operators must start to modernise their networks to create enough capacity for the various services and take care of the data surge.
And finally, considering today’s uncertain market conditions, business sustainability is prime and hence proactive decisions that can drive demand and growth and positively impact the balance sheet is needed. We identify superior network performance, spectrum and experience-centric operations as key areas driving this.
With both 3G and 4G coming into India, how do you think that will change the way India communicates?
3G is ready and available to masses. With a device ecosystem that is already large and growing fast, data traffic on 3G will continue to grow and this will also create a ready market for LTE. Also given the low data penetration in the country, mobile broadband adoption amongst different segments of consumers is going to evolve in stages. In which case, availability of multiple data technologies will be helpful to achieve penetration.
As mobile broadband becomes truly mass market, operators need to make the right network evolution decisions that assure continued profitability while safeguarding service flexibility and scalability.
With the slew of smartphones hitting the market every day, how much do you think the smartphone usage in India is going to be unique from the rest of the world and what does this mean for operators?
According to Ericsson Consumer Lab, smartphone usage in India is likely to mirror usage patterns seen in developed markets; however, cultural nuances will reflect in the usage patterns. Indians love to talk! But no longer just via voice, but also via mobile internet. Today 30 per cent of all time spent on smartphones is on chat apps. In India, about 42 out of every 100 text messages sent are instant messages, whereas in US this is just 25 out of 100!
Today, 3 million kids between 9-18 years old, in urban India have mobile broadband on their smartphone and there are many more who will take to mobile broadband soon. This early adoption would mean increased data users and greater usage. According to our internal estimates, mobile broadband data traffic per user per month is likely to increase from 475 MB in 2012, to around 900 MB per month by 2017.
For operators, managing this growth in data traffic while delivering superior consumer experience would be the key.
This is only a great beginning and the adaptation is only going to increase as consumers get more and more data aware. And with LTE around, it makes it even more exciting, as it opens the door for multiple new opportunities.
