When the 2011 census was published – a curious statistic popped up – more households had mobile phones than toilets. There is little wonder that in 2016, when Reliance Jio, India’s upstart telecommunications company offered 4G services for free, they managed to bag over 100 million subscribers in just six months. In perspective, that’s roughly twenty million more than the population of Germany.
This is a new pattern that has evolved with technology – one that started at the beginning of this decade and continued. By 2014, more new subscribers signed up in India than did in China or all of Africa.
This is not just limited to mobile data services. Hardware and mobile phone manufacturers as well as ‘data mining’ service providers are reaping huge gains. According to an IDC report, India is the fastest growing smartphone market in the world, accounting for over 27.5 million devices sold in the second quarter of 2016, with the market growing by over 10% a quarter.
It sounds completely plausible – given that over 200 million mobile phones were sold in India in just two years – 109.1 million phones in 2016 versus 103.9 in the preceding year – 2015. But, by no means is it indicative of a market nearing saturation. Making the next billion-and-a-half phones expected to be sold in India within the next five years is an $80 billion opportunity for the manufacturing and components industry.
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