 "Smartphone")
The survey part of the third Mobile Consumer Report, from Deloitte also found that in India the rate of using voice calls and SMS has declined around 20% in the last two years years. Instant Messaging (10%) and VoIP (22%) saw the highest growth in usage penetration.
Lower voice calls and higher VoIP usage among early adopters could be consequences of the "poor sound quality" for standard voice calls. The VoIP usage (typically via an app) saw a 22% increase from 26% in 2013 to 48% in 2015. Consumers prefer VoIP for cheaper/free international calls and because of the possibility of making video calls. The survey also found that more than two-thirds of those surveyed are generally unsatisfied with the quality of voice calls.
"In the coming years, the quality of network for Internet will be more important than the quality of network for voice calls," said Santosh Anoo, senior director, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP.More than a third of respondents that do not subscribe to 4G are likely to do so in the next 12 months. At the same time, consumers are increasingly using Wi-Fi at home, at work, or place of study for accessing the Internet. The Wi-Fi usage increased from 43% in 2013 to 45% in 2015 while mobile network usage saw a decline from 57% to 55% during the same period for accessing the Internet on smartphones.
The Deloitte Global Mobile Consumer Survey, 2015 analyses the mobile usage habits of over 2,000 Indian consumers as part of a global survey of 49,000 respondents across 30 countries. As of June 2015, 86% of those surveyed owned smartphone, which is 12% higher than in 2013.
Smartphone Addiction: According to the research, about 28% of smartphone owners look at their devices at least 11 to 25 times a day, while 22% of them check their phones at least 26 to 50 times a day. Interestingly, more than 17% of the respondents look at their smartphones at least 51 to 100 times a day. About 78% of smartphone owners check their phones within 15 minutes of waking up while more than half check within five minutes. This ritual is repeated at the end of the day with more than half (52%) checking their phones within five minutes before going to sleep every night, said the findings.
The research found that communication services namely mobile IM, social networks are the first thing consumers check on their smartphones in the morning. These are followed by emails and SMS.
"From our study, it is evident that smartphone usage has disrupted many common daily activities, and this is here to stay," said Anoo. He further added "With e-commerce and mobile commerce on the rise, consumers are becoming extremely data hungry. There is huge scope for mobile carriers and network operators to monetize this opportunity. However, the telecom sector will need to optimize networks and infrastructure to meet consumer expectations."
Mobile Banking / e-Commerce on the rise: According to the research, phone owners in India are highly interested in in-store mobile payments and mobile money transfers. Given an option of in-store mobile payments, 71% of those surveyed said they will use the facility. Also, 54% of them said they are interested in mobile money transfers.
However, barriers for in-store payments uptake still exist. The most common reason given for not using phone to make a payment was fear about security - cited by 39% of respondents. This was followed by "I don't see the benefits from using this" (19%), and "I don't know any stores that allow this" (19%).
Among all shopping related activities, browsing a shopping website/app is the most popular on smartphones, while making an online purchase of a product comes next. While 85% of respondents use their smartphones for browsing shopping websites regularly, only 43% prefer to use their smartphone rather than any other devices.
