Social networking is gradually becoming the buzz word for internet users not just in India but worldwide. It is becoming more and more important for people to be social networking friendly, over and above being internet friendly.
A research by comScore, a digital market research company, suggests that the use of social media in India grew 43 per cent in one year to 33 million users in July, making the country the seventh largest market for social media, after the USA, China, Germany, Russian Federation, Brazil and the UK.
“The social networking phenomenon continues to gain steam worldwide and India represents one of the fastest growing markets at the moment,” said Will Hodgman, executive vice president for Asia Pacific region, comScore.
Another report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) reveals that 23 per cent of Indians who are online access social networking platforms.

The telecom connectionWith people’s need to stay connected increasing, the use of social networking on mobiles has been gaining prominence, which was good news for both network services providers and handsets manufacturers.
For operators eyeing a piece of the data market to generate higher revenues, social networking came as a boon. Handset manufacturers, too, boast about the number of social networking sites their devices come pre loaded with.
In fact, internet usage on mobile is mostly limited to accessing social networking sites. Tata Docomo admits that the company noticed selective usage on internet on mobile where the focus of users has been to use social networking sites. Hence, they launched the pay per website tariff plan.

Twist in the taleSocial networking was always attractive to telcos, and now with Facebook and Twitter becoming a rage of sorts, especially among the youth, this space is becoming a new advertising frontier for the telecom industry.
Vodafone, Airtel, Tata Docomo, Virgin, BlackBerry, Nokia, Sony Ericsson…name the brand and it has a presence on almost all the popular social networking platforms.
D Shivkumar, managing director, Nokia India, says, “No company can ignore the digital medium in today’s world. We are very active on this front. It is very important to engage the customer.”
Lenny Musatov, chief marketing officer, MTS, says, “Digital marketing cannot be ignored. It is the best way to introduce products to the audience. Internet usage in China is very high and I expect India to follow the same route. Hence, the digital medium holds immense importance for us.”
Companies relying solely on traditional means to reach consumers are under estimating the impact that the shift to digital media is going to have. The commercial opportunities that social digital media presents are huge compared to the traditional ways, especially with most companies targeting the youth.
Rithesh Ghoshal, head, marketing communications, Tata Docomo, says, “We are by design a youth oriented brand and being on the internet and interacting with them sends a strong vibe – that we understand you and we are one of you. This is not the case with TV commercials.”
Obviously then, networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn etc. help companies to build a brand, but operators and handset manufacturers are aggressively tapping into social media to build loyalty for their brands, gather feedback, monitor consumer trends and engage and interact with the user.
Anurag Kontu, head of channel marketing, Asia Pacific, and head of marketing, India, Sony Ericsson, believes, “It is about doing things that we normally don’t do from a marketing perspective. It is about engaging users, talking to them, conversing with them, celebrating with them. Digital space is all about keeping a dialogue open with the target audience.”
Ghoshal agrees that the digital space also helps in two way engagement with consumers, which is important for any brand.
Shalini Sethi, head, corporate communications, Aircel says, “We are actively present on all SNS like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter etc. The main aim is to engage, to educate and inform consumers about our products. From time to time, we hold contests on products to educate the customer and let them experience it.”
She adds, “Telecommunication is all about communication and it is the best way to communicate and educate the consumer. It keeps you very well informed about customer feedback. This is a two way communication, both for the consumer and the brand.”
Sony Ericsson believes that it is about getting real feedback from real users regarding what they like and what they dislike about the product. The feedback in turn leads to product improvement.
Another key goal of having a presence in the social media space is to create a brand presence and build a base of followers who will keep coming back. Kontu adds, “We are not looking to convert everybody into a Sony Ericsson user; it is more about having talkability for the brand.”
MTS and Reliance Communications currently don’t have a presence in the social networking space but are working towards it.
An Idea Cellular spokesperson says, “Idea Cellular has focused on building brand awareness amongst the growing digital community, with a special focus on social networking sites. The initial response to our social media communication has been very encouraging. We have done many consumer engagement activities on Facebook and have received good response from the users. Within a short span of time, we have over 94,000 fans on the Idea network.”
The spokesperson adds, “Social media has been beneficial for Idea in understanding and listening to our consumers, and the overall digital community, which largely comprises of the youth. And in building effective brand activations and creating a consumer connect.”
There is no denying the fact that the social medium is of immense importance for everybody who wants to maintain contact with the consumer. It offers marketers endless possibilities to promote the product and also interact with the consumer. And, telcos seem to making the most of it.

India has witnessed the highest growth rate of mobile subscribers, registering 49 per cent growth in the period 2009-2010, and with the advent of 3G, the telecom industry and mobile services are only expected to see an upsurge. The 3G and BWA spectrum and the advent of WiMax and LTE based 4G technologies will play a crucial role in shaping the Broadband industry in India. The Indian mobile market is still voice intensive and is the major source of revenue for operators. In this context, voice based 3G services will see greater acceptance.
According to Anand Rangachary, managing director, Frost & Sullivan, South Asia, Middle East and North Africa, “The pricing wars in India have put pressure on ARPUs. This coupled with high churn rates and falling voice tariffs means that a wireless data strategy will be essential for operators going forward.”
A successful 3G business model would require a portfolio approach to 3G services. It would involve expanding the set of applications and services, exploiting new trends that expand the addressable market and ARPU potential, and adopting a clean-slate approach to avoid repeating the mistakes of other developed market operators. The ability to provide a richer portfolio of applications and services will enable improvement in data ARPUs.
Introduction of 3G/BWA has opened a huge market for equipment vendors, content providers and smartphone providers. Smartphones are changing consumer behavior like never before by enabling consumers to access the internet via mobile devices. The smartphone volume for 2009 was 2.4 million units; growing at a CAGR of 39.20 per cent for the period financial year 2010-2016.
The success of the smartphone as a consumer device has fundamentally improved the ease of use and access of 3G services. The 3G opportunity increases with the options of handsets, dongles and other devices.
Emergence of third-party application stores that provide a greater revenue share to developers and enable consumers to access a greater variety of applications would be a crucial tipping point.
Operators are evaluating partnerships, and outsourcing opportunities to roll out their network and services, and this provides a tremendous opportunity to equipment providers.
The VAS market for 3G in India is expected to be $1,260 million (more than Rs 5,860 crore); and will grow at a CAGR of 21.70 per cent during the financial year 2010 – 2016. Applications that enable video conferencing, gaming, social networking, instant messaging, mobile TV and convergent communications, which are consumer centric services, would show increased traction. The adoption would be evident even amongst enterprises.
Enterprise mobility is one such area, especially since enterprises are becoming increasingly aware of the mobility advantage to their organisation in terms of increasing productivity and decreasing operational cycles. Operators who have data centric state of the art 3G networks will be best positioned to capitalise on this emerging growth segment.
Another potential area is mobile marketing and advertising; though it is not very effective yet, marketers are anticipated to spend increasing amounts of money on marketing through the mobile medium.
The delay in allotment of 3G spectrum to operators was a major hurdle to the rollout of services in the country. Also, the Information and Broadcast (IB) ministry has asked all telecom operators to demonstrate that 3G services can be monitored, intercepted and blocked, before they roll out services.
Besides, the Government of India’s recent stance on the network security threats and the halt on fresh orders, has affected the sales of not only the Chinese equipment manufacturers but also those of Western vendors. While there are roadblocks in rolling out 3G, the fact remains that 3G will bring the next wave of revolution in telecommunication and will strengthen India’s economy in the near future.
The above stated conclusions were drawn from the recently concluded 2nd Annual GIL 2010: India – The Global Community of Growth, Innovation and Leadership, organised at The Leela Palace, Bangalore by Frost & Sullivan.
The Congress, besides focusing on various chief executive officers’ perspective on telecom growth, had specific industry think tank sessions and several panel discussions that were held in parallel. The Information and Communication Technologies think tank focused on 3G – Transforming the Communication Ecosystem.