Thursday, January 06, 2011

Survey Suggests That India Has Second Largest Tablet Adoption

A survey conducted by Accenture suggests that 2011 will be a good year for 3DTVs and Tablets. It spanned 8000 consumers across 8 countries – Brazil, China, India, Russia, France, Germany, Japan and the U.S for 19 consumer technologies. Among other things it also suggested that there would be decline in the purchase of Computers and Mobile Phones (smartphones were categorized separately). Before I come to the India specific part lets take a general look at the survey.

Purchase rates for PCs and feature phones will drop by 39% and 56% respectively. It also revealed that several simple tasks were being performed on devices like tablets instead of PCs. In BRIC countries where the sample was said representative of the urban and semi-urban populations were found to have a greater appetite for consumer technology compared to the other 4 more mature markets – where 40% said they would not buy products this year. The respondents were evenly distributed across genders and all 8 countries(12.5% from each).

3DTVs
3DTVs could see a 500% increase. Of course it is important to mention that the base isn’t too high to begin since the concept hasn’t really caught on so far despite a lot of hype. While the ownership was the highest in China – Brazil and India had the highest number who claimed that they would buy in the next 12 months (2o percent each) followed by Russia and China at 16% and 14% only. Of course planning to buy one and actually buying are different things.

Social Networking
Of the surveyed users Russia and Brazil led the charge here – neither of them can be called Facebook countries. It also suggested that in BRIC countries adoption is more uniform across all age groups compared to the other 4 countries. Overall over 3/4 use social networking to stay in touch or to reconnect with old friends. And only 1/5th use to write about products or for causes important to them – like job hunting.

India scored high in the following categories. To stay in touch with friends, Reconnect with old friends, To make new friends, meet new people (I hope this doesn’t refer to the ‘Will you friendship me’s), To broadcast their opinions, To plan social activities, To be engaged in my local community, To look for jobs.

Tablets and Smartphones
China led the pack when it came to smartphone adoption with more than half of the respondents currently owning a smartphone. Followed by the US with nearly a third of them owning one. But more importantly it is expected to be the most purchased device in India and Russia and the second most purchased in Brazil, Germany, US and France. No real surprises.

As far as Tablets were concerned once again the Chinese were in the lead here with over 20% already owning a tablet and a similar number saying they would purchase one in the next 12 months. Here’s the kicker – India had 10% respondents in each category – higher than any of the 6 countries that included the likes of Brazil, Russia, France, Germany, Japan and the U.S. I cant help but being a little skeptical about this number – not that 10% is particularly high!

Some other things pertaining to India were -
  • 84 percent(roughly 148 million consumers) of Indian respondents say they will pay a premium for enhanced smartphone capabilities.
  • Emailing on a PC dropped from 86 to 67 percent grew from 19 to 34 percent on the phone
  • In 2010, 57 percent connected at least weekly, and for our 2011 study that number has fallen to 42 percent
  • Web Searches have dropped from 61 percent of consumers doing it weekly to 47 percent.
  • The smartphone is predicted to be the most- purchased device in India and Russia.

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