Sms Market Potential in India

Mobile Market Report – SMS Usage in Urban India

SMS, the humble messaging service of the mobile world recently celebrated its 15th birthday, an accidental invention that has demonstrated remarkable resilience and is still at the top.

SMS usage continues to grow every year with more and more new innovative ways of utilizing its potential coming to the forefront. Indians are using SMS as an extension of their lives more and more every year, an average Indian sends 29 SMS per month (TRAI data). It’s being used not just to keep in touch with friends and family but to check bank balances, mobile bills, and status of train/flight to name a few.

The following market report looks at SMS usage in Urban India to shed some light on its future and answer a critical question, “Is SMS here to stay or will it be replaced?”

SMS VAS in India – Perspective

Indians use SMS for all sorts of reasons from receiving jokes to checking on flight status to enquiring about exam results. It’s a very powerful medium for getting in touch with people without soliciting a backlash as seen on phone calls. It’s effective for getting the message out to potential customers or retaining existing ones. Some key points of this report are:

• 1 in 5 urban Indians have used a SMS based VAS service either as a one-off or on subscription basis

• SMS is an effective marketing tool, showing conversion rates a lot higher than other conventional mediums i.e. TV/Radio etc. 1 in 3 Urban Indian has acted in some manner over the SMS i.e. forwarding to others or enquiring about it.

• SMS, an advertising medium, has an interaction rate of around 5%

• A quarter of urban Indians have participated in some sort of SMS contest, a valuable tool for getting consumers involved with products/services

SMS VAS Users – City wise Distribution

SMS is a popular medium for delivering Value Added Services (VAS); it’s a valuable revenue source for service providers, almost 5% of service provider revenue comes from SMS VAS...