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Indian Internet Industry

100 million & counting: Internet users in India

November 10, 2011

It has happened. India crosses the 100 Mn Internet users mark this September. As per the latest report from IAMAI, there are 112 Mn claimed Internet users as on September 2011, out of which 88 million users belong to urban cities and 24 Mn to rural areas. Compared to last year, there has been a growth of around 13% and by December 2011 it is expected that there will be 121 Mn claimed Internet users.

Few other key insights from the report:

  • Usage from home has increased whereas common access points like cyber café usage seem to be on decline as compared to previous years. Around 37 percent of users access the Internet from home, 23 percent from cyber cafes, 22 percent from office, 9 percent from mobile devices and rest from schools and other such places.

  • Internet usage in smaller towns continues to spike its dominance over top 8 metros with a combined usage of more than 60 percent.

  • Youngsters in India continue to drive Internet Usage in India and usage of school going kids has seen a substantial rise. This opens up the market for children aged below 18 year of age.

  • While the usage by both college going kids and young men have taken a slight dip compared to 2009, school going kids have started using internet more than they’ve ever had in the past decade owing to the now existent e-learning services and educational information available on the Internet.

  • Emails, Education, Social Networking, Music and Text chatting are the most popular activities amongst Urban Internet users whereas in Rural areas accessing music, videos, photos and general information search are the activities of prime usage.

So, users and usages have increased. What next for India Online? More e-commerce companies? Better e-learning services? Increased market for smart-phones and tablets? Growth in Mobile Internet Industry? Well, maybe all of these. Indeed a landmark figure has been reached, now interesting to see how it impacts the overall state of Indian Internet Industry and its position in Global competitive landscape.

Source: Report on Internet in India (I-Cube) 2011.

E-commerce in India: From convenience to choice

April 29, 2011

And this time I was not surprised when this friend of mine from a far remote corner of the country informed me that her recent purchase was actually an original off the runway dress straight from a leading fashion event. By now I know that like many, even she is hooked on to a popular luxury e-commerce Indian site which not only gives her the chance to access the latest in fashion but has also made it absolutely simple for her to buy anything of her taste in just few clicks. This friend who had to relocate to a small town due to personal reasons always used to crib about lack of branded or in-vogue things at her place but since the day I had introduced her to few established e-commerce sites in India there has been absolutely no looking back. From books to apparel to accessories, she has tried it all and is thrilled at the way e-shopping has transformed her shopping experience. Not only is she herself convinced about it, she has also got few friends and colleagues of hers to log on to these sites and order stuffs which are not available in their vicinity.

As a consumer, her online buying behavior has moved on an up curve with time, she started with items like books where the chances of product damage during transit were less plus the purchase value was small. With positive experiences by one e-retailer and one courier company, she slowly started to order high value items from different sites and now is completely convinced about the benefits of e-commerce and reliability of online transaction in India. Yes, consumers like hers are not the majority and there are many who are still wary of transacting online but then the fact that she is ordering so many high value items from such remote corner is definitely some indicator.  In yet another similar incidence, there is this acquaintance of mine who is in a habit of changing his mobile phone every few months. During his last purchase, he managed to get a model of HTC delivered at his door far before than I could have bought it. He had pre booked it online from yet another popular Indian e-commerce site!

Isn’t it interesting to see such trends happening in India now? While for people like us e-commerce is not something new and by now we are quite habituated of transacting online but then the majority of Indian consumers still live in tier 2 and tier 3 cities who have enough reasons to not shop online, be it internet connectivity or lack of awareness in terms of using their cards online. While for us, convenience or price differentiation triggers our online behavior, for them it is the choice and availability of products.

Though not hugely upbeat, but there are enough statistics now which is directing towards the change in online buying behavior of Indians beyond metros. As per last e-commerce census by Ebay, 3,296 Indian cities shopped online in 2010 and of this, 2234 were Tier-2 & Tier-3 cities. Founder of naaptol.com, a best deal marketplace site says that 90% of his business comes from rural India. The company advertises its deals across product categories in newspapers and customers in the rural market are placing orders—not at the click of a mouse but by punching in the contact number given in the ads. As per the March 2011 data for online banking in India, 48% of users are from metros and 52% come in from non-metros, while last year the data was different with 57% from metro & 43% from non-metros. Yet another e-commerce site Letsbuy.com has sold LED TVs of as high value as Rs. 1 lakh and above in tier 2 and 3 towns where the product is not available through normal retailers.

From necessities like ticketing and banking to luxuries like fashion apparel and high end gadgets, consumers from different parts of the country are logging in and trying to buy these online. Not only the list of products being bought has expanded, even the ticket size of online transactions has increased now. There is need for convenience, an aspiration for luxury products and money to spend; lacking was the avenue to access such stuffs in remote towns which gets fulfilled by many big and reliable web shops now. The behavior is definitely changing but is it significant enough for all these e-commerce players to have a sustainable business model? Yet to see how many become revenue wise successful in long run, though few online players have already created a difference and made that impact!

*In case you would like to read the ebay e-commerce census of last year, you can download the same from here.

Micromax fastest rising query after IRCTC : Google Zeitgeist 2010

December 13, 2010

Micromax is the 2nd fastest rising query in India! Wow, the brand definitely seems to be on a roll. At first I was surprised but hey wait, isn’t it the most buzzed brand in Indian Telecom Industry these days? Google has released its Zeitgeist 2010 report for most searched words in India. While IRCTC retains its position of being at the top like earlier, this year there were definitely some newer surprises in the list. Here goes the complete list for Indian market:


Micromax is gaining market share in India by making cheap phones with long battery life and targeting the needs of mass Indian consumers. Recently it announced the launch of its android phones too at a cost of Rs. 6,999/-. Not only is this brand selling more than a million phone every month, in last two years it has also become the third-largest GSM mobile phone vendor in India after Nokia and Samsung, with a market share of 6%.

Well, mass targeted products definitely sell in India. Google’s this report further substantiates it, check out the section for raising people. Sonakshi Sinha scores higher than Katrina, mass appeal of Dabbangg once again?

Bollywood Online Anti Piracy Partners: Marketing Initiatives to Reality

September 14, 2010

When I watched Dabangg last weekend, the first thing which caught my attention was a new category of opening credit – “Online Anti Piracy Partner”. Oh yes I do notice the opening credits and brand mentions :), blame it on my previous job which was actually into entertainment industry and as a part of my role I also used to look after brand alliances there. So coming down to this online anti piracy partner, I’ve been observing the increased usage of this term with every movie now and so when I saw a brand mentioned in the opening credit for this, it looked like a positive change. Indeed great to realize that Bollywood is now taking smarter technological routes to deal with piracy and there are branding efforts to give due credits to the partners who are supporting the industry in this cause.

But then I read this article today about Dabangg’s piracy, so Dabangg not only broke records in terms of BO collection in its opening two days, it also broke records of pirated distribution in the first two days. Within 15 hours of its release in India, over 50 websites were showing the entire movie of Dabangg. In 24 hours the numbers were over 200. Within 72 hours of the movie release, over 150,000 downloads were done in high-conservative assessment. In terms of dollar value at a 10 dollars ticket price, it is 1.5 million dollars (US) in the first 72 hours that has been lost. In Indian Rupees it comes to approximately – 6.8 Crores, an amount that could easily finance a couple of movies. With figures like this, it actually becomes the largest value of piracy in the first three days of a Hindi movie’s release. Those were the details of just online downloads, how about pirated DVDs? Even DNA reported availability of pirated DVDs of this movie within first two days at all prominent markets in just Rs. 50. In Bangalore, in fact the pirated copies are available for as low as Rs. 30.

Well, seems like regardless of all the marketing initiatives and consumer awareness programs to educate people about piracy, the problem remains as grave as earlier. In fact with digital distribution and increased internet usage by consumers in India, the access to online pirated content is getting easier by the day. At one hand internet is a boon to this industry when it comes to movie marketing or celebrity PR but on the other it’s a bane as well when it comes to illegitimate distribution of the content. Despite embracing technology and adopting software solutions to combat the piracy, till now nothing seems to be working for Bollywood to deal with this issue. Wondering what could be the bigger reason for this – lack of strong legal policies against piracy of content in India, strict bodies to enforce the existing laws, no strict action against the caught cyber criminals or the general attitude of ‘why pay when it’s available for free‘ of Indian consumers who are ok to compromise with quality if something is available for free?

All that glitters may be gold this diwali – Indians to go online for shopping?

October 17, 2009

Update: Catch my latest post on pluggdin:

  • All that glitters may be gold this diwali: It’s that time of the year again which most Indian marketers wait with bated breath, there is festivity all around and thanks to better market condition, Indian consumers are looking forward to splurge this festive season both in offline as well as online shopping. Read More…

Wish all readers a ‘bagful’ (after shopping ) & prosperous diwali! 🙂

Vertical to Horizontal: Web18

October 18, 2008
Well, quite a lot of development at in.com! We saw lots of online as well as television advertisement followed by some noticeable alliances with entertainment programs and now this movement of their vertical portals like Buzz18 and Storeguru to in.com. So, is web18 group moving from vertical portals to a horizontal one? Read More At Marketing Chit-Chat

Vertical to Horizontal: Web18

October 17, 2008

While assessing some more shopping portals for promoting the festival gift voucher of my company, I landed on www.storeguru.com, the e-commerce team from web18 had contacted me earlier for placing our product there and I had thought I will take it up further during peak season. But the moment I opened the site today morning, I got the following message:

 

So, aggregation is in the season? www.storeguru.com has become http://shop.in.com! Infact yesterday only I had noticed another development of in.com. As a part of my job, I do give a quick glance to all entertainment industry headlines every morning and www.buzz18.com is one of the sites which come into my this list of regular visits. And since I’m a very regular visitor of this site so it didn’t take me much to notice that www.buzz18.com has now become http://buzz18.in.com/.

 

Well, quite a lot of development at in.com! We saw lots of online as well as television advertisement followed by some noticeable alliances with entertainment programs and now this movement of their vertical portals like Buzz18 and Storeguru to in.com. So, is web18 group moving from vertical portals to a horizontal one? I’m not sure of the exact objective of web18 for doing the same. Strategy of one horizontal portal or multiple vertical portals has different pros and cons, but I think the decision of consolidating one horizontal portal will definitely benefit in.com from traffic point of view. It will surely help in.com in selling higher traffic figures to advertisers and hence negotiate for better deals. Looks like a good movement but lets see if this aggregation helps in.com compete with the already existing horizontal players in India like Yahoo, Rediff etc.

Internet shopping boom in India

August 9, 2008

Well, Rakhi season is here and as expected all my inboxes are flooded with promo mailers from different e-commerce sites about online Rakhi hampers and packs. After going through different mailers and hampers on offer, I settled for one of the Rakhi packs from rediff.com shopping portal. I have been sending Rakhi through online shopping for last 5 years I think. Though it is bit expensive than the normal post / courier service but I still prefer it over those primarily because of delivery guarantee and presentation / packaging. I have faced some irritating issues earlier when Rakhi was not delivered on time even after couriering it well in advance and once I remember I had sent the Rakhi and a small gift in a very beautiful packet only to come to know later that my brother had only received Rakhi in an open envelope without any gift inside 🙂. So, considering the assurance and convenience which I get while sending it through these e-commerce sites I find it to be justified to spend those extra bucks for it.

But I must say unlike few years back, this year it took me some time to make my purchase decision mainly because every online shopping was having some or other interesting thing to offer with almost nil price differentiation. Another interesting thing to be noticed was the way packets were described in these portals, instead of simply saying packet consists of 1 Rakhi, 1 card, etc. most of them were focusing on the packaging and the relevance of it to the tradition of Rakhi. Ehhh quite attractive and strong marketing so to say. E-commerce sites are learning it well to push online shopping esp. during festivals in India. Despite the price curve moving steeply upwards during peak season these sites are very much able to sell their products as there is a certain set of TG in Indian market now who is becoming used to the convenience of online shopping.

Infact last week only I had read an interesting article in ET about internet shopping catching up fastly in India. As per the statistics, eBay India is selling one product a minute and its not only software or tech product which is being sold, rather its surprising to know that one of the most common products sold online is jewelery. Here are some other interesting figures from that ET article [dated 3rd Aug’08] about eBay India which reinforces the surge of internet shopping in India.

  • On an average day a piece of jewellery is sold every seven minutes, a coin or note sells every 16 minutes, a stamp sells every 19 minutes, an apparel sells every 22 minutes and a book is sold every 27 minutes on eBay India
  • 70-75% of buyers on eBay India are from age group of 25-30 years.
  • It is jewellery that is the most sought product on this site.
  • Buying trend wise electronic gadgets are popular among male buyers and jewellery is the obvious choice of Indian women.
  • Apart from jewellery, apparel category is the other area which is a favorite among women buyers.

Apparel and jewellery being bought online in India, online shopping is really catching up then 🙂

Internet shopping boom in India

August 9, 2008

Well, Rakhi season is here and as expected all my inboxes are flooded with promo mailers from different e-commerce sites about online Rakhi hampers and packs. After going through different mailers and hampers on offer, I settled for one of the Rakhi packs from rediff.com shopping portal. I have been sending Rakhi through online shopping for last 5 years I think. Though it is bit expensive than the normal post / courier service but I still prefer it over those primarily because of delivery guarantee and presentation / packaging. I have faced some irritating issues earlier when Rakhi was not delivered on time even after couriering it well in advance and once I remember I had sent the Rakhi and a small gift in a very beautiful packet only to come to know later that my brother had only received Rakhi in an open envelope without any gift inside 🙂. So, considering the assurance and convenience which I get while sending it through these e-commerce sites I find it to be justified to spend those extra bucks for it.

But I must say unlike few years back, this year it took me some time to make my purchase decision mainly because every online shopping was having some or other interesting thing to offer with almost nil price differentiation. Another interesting thing to be noticed was the way packets were described in these portals, instead of simply saying packet consists of 1 Rakhi, 1 card, etc. most of them were focusing on the packaging and the relevance of it to the tradition of Rakhi. Ehhh quite attractive and strong marketing so to say. E-commerce sites are learning it well to push online shopping esp. during festivals in India. Despite the price curve moving steeply upwards during peak season these sites are very much able to sell their products as there is a certain set of TG in Indian market now who is becoming used to the convenience of online shopping.

Infact last week only I had read an interesting article in ET about internet shopping catching up fastly in India. As per the statistics, eBay India is selling one product a minute and its not only software or tech product which is being sold, rather its surprising to know that one of the most common products sold online is jewelery. Here are some other interesting figures from that ET article (dated 3rd Aug’08) about eBay India which reinforces the surge of internet shopping in India.

  • On an average day a piece of jewellery is sold every seven minutes, a coin or note sells every 16 minutes, a stamp sells every 19 minutes, an apparel sells every 22 minutes and a book is sold every 27 minutes on eBay India
  • 70-75% of buyers on eBay India are from age group of 25-30 years.
  • It is jewellery that is the most sought product on this site.
  • Buying trend wise electronic gadgets are popular among male buyers and jewellery is the obvious choice of Indian women.
  • Apart from jewellery, apparel category is the other area which is a favorite among women buyers.

Apparel and jewellery being bought online in India, online shopping is really catching up then 🙂

Internet rejuvenating Indian Art Industry!

August 2, 2008

Yesterday while just casually browsing through ET, one piece which caught my immediate attention was how internet is changing the face of Indian Art Industry. Indian Art and Internet, oh wow what a lovely combination as both happen to be my special areas of interests – art out of passion and internet out of profession J. I immediately stopped over to read the complete story and I was quite happy to observe the shift which is happening even in Indian Art Industry because of this overall internet revolution. Not only artists are using Internet for reaching out to different markets but they are also using it for expanding their canvas of inspiration. While offline stores and exhibitions give artists a chance to promote large number of creations at one go but at the same time Internet gives them a very wide avenue for promoting their work to right kind of TG across different geographies at a very economic cost. Most importantly you get to see work of other people, you can discuss and share feedback with like minded people as well as it provides ample opportunities for and artist to study and research the subject of painting thereby expanding his / her creative horizon. While downside of it is definitely there with more chances of plagiarism and piracy but as per me the positive aspects of it outweigh the negative ones.

Indian Art industry is moving ahead quite positively and thanks to the internet exposure that prices of Indian works are growing northwards. As per an estimate by the creator of The Fine Art Fund, Phillip Hoffman, the size of the Indian market has grown from $2 million to approximately $400 million in the last seven years and to add to that as per Yamini Mehta, director of modern and contemporary Indian art at the London-based Christie’s, “Indian art is becoming a part of international consciousness, why is why we have seen a spectacular growth in this field”. More and more people outside are looking out for Indian masterpieces and famous artists are getting unimaginable prices too. Early this year M.F. Husain’s “Battle of Ganga and Jamuna” sold for $1.6 million in New York! $1.6 million…this is seriously some money man :-).

As an amateur artist with a strong passion towards painting, I have always believed in the power of internet for promoting Indian Art to the right TG. Personally speaking I paint out of hobby and have never tried doing it commercially but I know of many good and senior artists who earn their living through art only and I know how difficult it is for them to meet their ends because of low potential in the local market. I know of this friend of mine who is a very good senior level artist but she was always confined to the limits of Indian Market. One fine day I helped her in building a website and we put her paintings in sites like e-bay etc. Though there was no miraculous result which happened immediately and of course she didn’t make any earnings in million dollars but results were not bad either. She started making money slowly out of online selling and atleast she gets lots of leads now through her website of people interested in learning painting from her. She has got steady income and now she keeps on telling everybody about power of internet and how it can help them in reaching out to wider sphere.

Reading that article in ET with the word “industry” suffixed everywhere after “Indian Art” instilled quite some hope within me. Wish like many other industries, internet revolutionizes Indian Art industry as well with more and more open minded artists who are willing to try out newer technologies and platforms.