The world is going mobile and so are Indian internet comapnies
“There is no app for a bourbon buzz on a warm day in a cool dark bar. The world will always want a drink” – Gone Girl
I would say, there is no app for above, yet. But the way we are seeing things moving in the android and iOS world, very soon there will be a mobile app for almost everything under the sun.
If you see the latest marketing efforts, online and offline, by Indian internet companies, be it in any category namely shopping, classifieds, travel commerce or entertainment, you will notice a common trend. Each and every one of them, almost, is promoting their mobile app.
Their communication, advertising, strategy, offers, promotions are all mobile first.
To give you a few examples, let’s see a few ads by online companies in the recent past.
Flipkart Big App Shopping Days
Now, I don’t really remember if Flipkart took part in the Great Online Shopping Festival this year because during the exact same dates they had a campaign of their own going on. This campaign was being heavily promoted on TV and on youtube. The offers were also exclusively available only on the mobile app.
To digress a little, this is one of the best ads promoting the mobile app that I have seen in a long time. The jingle is bang on, the production value is super high quality and you feel like watching it again and again. The casting, attention to detail in terms of background surroundings and equal representation of all types of target audience is simply spot on. Well done! Agency.
Flipkart App : “Is mai hai kisi ki khushi”
Flipkart quickly followed the previous short lived campaign with a new one where they are trying to occupy the “happiness” and shopping space, anytime, anywhere on the mobile app. The timing is correct when it comes to the shopping season ahead of christmas and new years.
Redbus.in – Easy bus ticketing
This is redbus’ latest campaign after they recently were bought by the ibibo group. They are promoting every single feature of the entire service and even showing that all of that can happen simply by just “tapping” on the mobile app.
Olx.in – Cell ko banao Sell Phone
This was a campaign specially targeted at women to sell their old stuff and empowering them to do so by simply using their own cellphone and converting them to “sell” phones. An entire campaign just to promote the usage of phone in selling old goods. That speaks a lot to the importance being given to app promotion.
Shaadi.com – Happiness is just an app away
Again, a campaign purely to promote app usage and no mention of the website whatsoever apart from the fact that they are calling it Shaadi.com mobile.
Myntra.com
They along with a lot others come up with app specific and app exclusive promotions regularly to drive app usage over desktop.
Why App?
Observation, strategy or just numbers
Now, I can keep coming with examples one after another where the companies are suggesting the users to download their mobile app before anything else. The question we need to ask is why?
Because obviously, a desktop or a laptop is easier when it comes to shopping, filling forms, making payments, comparing things. It’s a bigger screen, more comfortable environment, easier to multitask and a lot others.
Questions to ask
- Did the companies actually observe that the user behavior is changing and they are open to accessing internet through apps more than desktop and laptops and hence the change in communication?
- Is it a trend that they are following of other internet developed nations and their transition from desktop to mobile?
- Is it a well thought out strategy which has their benefit if people get used to doing things on their mobile phones because that gives them more availability and usage.
- Or is it just plain numbers where companies are going by the forecast and current growing smartphone penetration in India and mobile internet users
Well, I’d say a bit of all of the above.
5 Reasons why Indian internet companies have a mobile first strategy
-
Smartphone Penetration
- 382 million – number of smartphones forecasted by 2016
- 111 million – number of smartphone connection in second quarter of 2014
-
Mobile Internet Penetration
- 173 million – mobile internet users by end of December 2014. 128 million (urban) & 45 million (rural)
- 96 million – 3G users by March 2015
-
Time Spent
- 3 hours 18 minutes – Time spent by users of average everyday with their smartphones
- 63% – Increase in mobile app usage in past 2 years
-
Industry is bullish on the behavior
- 90% – of Snapdeal’s orders to come from mobile devices in the next 2 years
- 800% – growth in mobile shopping in 2013. Accel partners expects it to grow at 150% CAGR till 2016
- 40% – of Amazon’s traffic comes from mobile devices
-
Being present on Mobile makes marketing simple and more accessible to TG
- 99 million – out of 112 million Facebook users access Facebook through mobile. With these numbers you cannot not be on mobile if you have truly milk one of the biggest media available for marketing today.
- Push notifications
At the end, I’d just like to say,
Visit xyz.com as the final sign off message is a thing of the past as “tap here” becomes the new “click here” and “visit now” becomes “download now”
If you are an internet company, in today’s age you cannot, not have an app or at least a mobile optimized website.
Source:
- http://www.iamai.in/PRelease_detail.aspx?nid=3499&NMonth=11&NYear=2014
- http://www.iamai.in/PCov_Detail.aspx?nid=3296&NMonth=3&NYear=2014
- http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/42261161.cms
- http://www.business-standard.com/article/management/2014-the-tipping-point-for-mobile-internet-in-india-114060100638_1.html
- http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/internet/india-set-to-become-secondlargest-internet-market-by-decemberend-report/article6614417.ece
- http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/10/15/mobile-shopping-set-to-dominate-indias-e-commerce-market/
- http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/india-has-higher-smartphone-usage-than-the-us-study-563208
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/11126997/Emerging-markets-will-lead-smartphone-growth-next-year.html
- http://www.gfk.com/news-and-events/press-room/press-releases/pages/tech-devices-in-2015-sales-forecast.aspx
- http://trak.in/tags/business/2014/04/04/indian-e-commerce-growth-stats/
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January 5, 2015
Hey Prateek, this is really interesting. Some really good points, but I have to disagree with the suggestion that shopping on a laptop or desktop is easier. Filling out forms, payment info etc is really a one-time thing. The next time you need to buy something, you open the app and 3-4 taps later, you’re done. If executed correctly, it can lead to a lot more impulse-buying, particularly since I feel many, many users would rather use their iPad/iPhone/Android device than get on to their desktops/laptops.
Also, building on your point about notifications, I feel that simply having the app on the phone increases visibility for the retailer. Think of a casual user who spots the flipkart icon on his/her phone, thinks “I wonder if they have any deals today”, and enters the app. That would never happen with a website, since you need to be actively thinking of flipkart to enter the URL and browse the website.
Just my 2 cents! By the way, your blog is fantastic. As you know I’m from a different world, but I still find it really interesting.
January 5, 2015
Hi Vishaal,
Thank you so much. Means a lot. Personally, for me, the only thing that a mobile device does for me is that it gives me the ability to access and process anything from anywhere. I dont have to wait to go home or go to work to open my laptop or desktop. I still really believe that a bigger screen is way easier to handle because not all apps and phones are capable of multi tasking if we speak of the larger audience and not just heavy internet and tech savvy users. Having said that, it’s immensely simple these days because companies are striving to make the mobile experience easy for users because of reasons mentioned in this post.
Yep, that’s a use case that I didnt think of which speaks for the case of having a mobile app. I am sure there are many such casual use cases.
Thank you so much for reading. Means a lot and do spread the word in this world or your world 🙂
April 25, 2015
This is an interesting piece of information. Definitely companies are now promoting their apps more as compared to their websites as in india, the mobile penetration is increasing rapidly and due to availability of android based mobile phones, it is is easy to sell your brand
October 26, 2015
Nice study. Mobile users are increasing day by day. It has become vital for companies in India to go for mobile to grab their potential customers. Thanks.