15 Minutes A Day - Average Call Time Of Indian Mobile Subscribers

[Arun 795]

India calling: 15 minutes / day

Surajeet Das Gupta in New Delhi

Business Standard

October 16, 2006 11:07 IST

Indians are now talking much more on their mobile phones than the Singaporeans, Chinese, Malaysians and Australians.

On average, each Indian mobile subscriber spends around 15 minutes every day on the phone, according to the latest data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

In comparison, according to figures based on various researches, including those by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Chinese use the mobile phone for only nine minutes, while the Singaporeans use it for over 10 minutes a day. Australians use it for less than four minutes, Malaysians for around six minutes and the Thais seven minutes a day.

The growing use of the mobile phone compares favourably with the time Indians spend in other areas like reading newspapers (19 minutes a day), surfing the Internet (less than seven minutes for dial up users) or watching TV news channels (over seven minutes a day, according to TAM Media Research) However, the average time spent by an individual watching TV is two-and-a-half hours a day.

More importantly, the minutes of use for mobile phones have grown by 38 per cent in the last 18 months from just over 10 minutes a day at the end of 2004.

This is due to two factors: in 2003 the government made incoming calls free under a new regime; and tariffs have dropped by nearly half in the last two years, making them the cheapest worldwide.

"The big push in use of minutes came with the move towards lifetime free incoming calls offered by operators. That was a potent attraction," said TV Ramachandran, director-general of the Cellular Operators' Association of India. Last December, virtually every operator offered free lifetime incoming calls to woo customers.

The use of minutes is clearly skewed in favour of incoming calls, meaning that the revenue an operator accrues as termination charge is very small compared with what it can earn from an outgoing call.

The fall in tariff, with the large incoming minutes, is the reason why the average revenue per user for operators has not gone up despite increase in use.

For instance, according to the Trai data, the ratio between incoming and outgoing calls for CDMA operators is 57:43. In the case of GSM, the total outgoing time is 179 minutes a month (of a total use of 414 minutes).

38% Internet users in India clock 8.2 hrs a week

Around 38 per cent of all Internet users in India are 'heavy users' and on an average spend about 8.2 hrs per week on the Internet, according to the, I-Cube 2006 report by the Internet And Mobile Association of India and IMRB International.

The report also revealed that the percentage of heavy Internet users in India is rapidly increasing: from 16% in 2001, 20% in 2004 to 38% in 2006 of the overall Internet users.

Similarly, the percentage of light Internet users has steadily declined from 63% in 2001 to 28% in 2006.

The study further states that school going kids spend an average of 322.3 minutes a week on the Internet, while college going students spend an average of 433.2 minutes a week.

Older men spend an average of 580.5 minutes a week. Among women, working women spend an average 535.3 minutes and non-working women spend 334.5 minutes a week.

Fast Facts:

Average minutes per week spent on the Internet:

Top 4 metros: 547.7

Other 4 metros: 423.5

Small metros: 467.1

Non metros: 381

Explaining this interesting trend, Subho Ray, president, IAMAI, said, "The study has confirmed what we have guessed for sometime: among some sections of media consumers time spent on Internet is longer than any other media. This is food for thought for advertisers and media buyers."

The study also established that the average time spent on the Internet in terms of minutes per week increased with the increasing age of the user. The active Internet users exhibit a marked increase in Internet usage as they graduate from school to college, and then onto their professional lives. The Internet has surely stamped its presence in the urban Indian landscape.

Mohan Krishnan, Vice President & General Manager, IMRB International says, "This trend is of great relevance. It leads us to the assumption that the Internet has now penetrated beyond the communication needs of the active user population and is no longer an avenue for exploring their curiosity. The active user population has found greater and diverse uses beyond communication and this is where the opportunity lies for far greater growth and adoption."

I-Cube 2006 covers around 65,000 individuals from 16,500 Households surveyed in 26 cities with additional coverage of 10,000 businesses and 250 cyber cafe owners and is one the largest offline survey of the Internet Users in India.

The Internet & Mobile Association of India is a not-for-profit industry body registered under the Societies Act, 1896. Its mandate is to expand and enhance the online and mobile value added services sectors. It is dedicated to presenting a unified voice of the businesses it represents to the government, investors, consumers and other stakeholders.

The association addresses the issues, concerns and challenges of the Internet and mobile economy and takes a leading role in its development.

[@ksh@T 20]

well in case of reliance i must say they have addicted -ppl to talk more in the beginning and after some time closing schemes so that the ppl get habitual and pay more............its with me..i talk almost 30-45 mins a day on phone

[GSV13 0]

I use my landline the most! Mobile is for incoming only or outside home calls!!!

[ashoksoft 83]

I'm connected thro my mobile only ... my usage is close to 3 - 3.5 hrs in every 24 hrs !! yeah a real heavy user

[linuxguy 0]

same here ashoksoft!

[basant_jp 0]

me too...

[Bablus 66]

me too...

would someone setup a poll, on number of hours daily mobile usage... lets know ourself better..

[Breaking News 0]

me too a gr8 user for reliance. more than 4-5 hrs per day

[Arun 795]

My Internet usage is around 15 hours per day

Mobile usage is usually under an hour a day.

BTW, Poll added to this topic, please cast your vote !

[vijaykv 5]

Hi,

Personally I use my FWP more, probably 2 - 3 hours a day. There is no mention of FWP, whether it comes in mobile or landline?

regards

[Arun 795]

Since FWP is "Wireless", yes you can include that too.

[spdf 0]

My mobile usage is less than 10 minutes daily but my internet usage is around 16 hours..