Rural India enabling mobile internet growth in India: Mobile Ecosystem and ad-Sizing Report 2018

MMA and GroupM shares insights on the state of the mobile marketing ecosystem and ad-sizing in India.

Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) along with GroupM, a media investment group, released its ‘Mobile Ecosystem and ad-Sizing Report’ 2018. The report includes an in-depth analysis of India’s mobile reach, smartphone penetration, rural and urban usage pattern, emphasis on gaming and mobile advertising spends. Advocated by GroupM, the report is a collaborative effort by the marketing and mobile industry.

The latest report has a quick peak on a basic guide on how programmatic works and its pros and cons, and its future evolution. It also brings you up-to-date information on the latest trends in data growth, content play, programmatic, device status and how India is moving towards a new era of mobile marketing, seeing rampant growth in both usages and spends.

Commenting on the occasion, Rohit Dadwal, managing director, MMA Asia Pacific, says in a press statement, “Mobile marketing is now a main stream advertising and marketing medium and it is imperative that we start to decipher various parts of this burgeoning media. We hope the ecosystem study would provide insights to marketers and the industry on the whole on the opportunity, and will help in making the right investments for its continuing growth.”

Sam Singh, the co-chair of MMA India and CEO GroupM, says, “The number of smartphone users is expected to only go up and it just shows how much potential these digital screens have. Hence, we as marketers must understand various facets of mobile marketing. Times are changing fast and we want to enable marketers with the knowledge that can help them in a long run.”

MMA does the ‘Mobile Ecosystem and ad-Sizing Report’ that deciphers state of mobile in India every year and what will we see in the future that will further explode this mobile first economy.

Highlights

Reach of Mobile among Consumers in India

• The mammoth growth of Jio - Reliance Jio is now 18 per cent of the total market, within 1.5-2 years of its launch; adding 200 mn+ users to the mobile ecosystem

• Rural India enabling mobile internet growth in India, adding 100 mn mobile internet users since 2015

• OTT apps surge made entertainment the activity where people spend most of their mobile data on

• 4G data usage grew 144 per cent in 2017. Further analysis points that Jio added 26 per cent rural subscribers using 4G, incumbents added 53 per cent of their 4G subscribers to the rural market

Mobile Handset Ecosystem in India

• 4G featurephone gives new lease of life to featurephone; may well be another year before smartphones take over feature phones in India. Jio and Micromax being the front-runners in the 4G featurephone space

• Xiaomi becomes the most shipped smartphone, the first time any smartphone crossing Samsung in the last five years

• Chinese manufacturers are making the big buck from India and Indian manufacturers are struggling

Basics of Programmatic Advertising

• Programmatic adoption in India is growing, it stands at 32% right now and is poised to grow to 52 per cent in the next 24 months

• India is in the top 3 countries in programmatic spends growth, in the past year the spends grew 81 per cent

• The propensity for programmatic guaranteed increasing in India; penetration to grow from 6% to 17 per cent by 2020

ALSO READ: GroupM's 2019 ad forecast: India is expected to contribute $1.35 bn of growth

Key Verticals driving the Mobile Advertising

The key verticals driving the mobile advertising are gaming, vernacular, OTT video and OTT audio.

I. Gaming

Mobile Gaming in India is dominated by freemium games. 2016 saw a 200% increase in gaming app revenue, which will grow at a CAGR of 87% till 2020, crossing the USD 1 billion mark.

In Indian 9 out of 10 people have games on their phone. 26% of Indian gamers are women.

II. Vernacular

Vernacular language users in India will grow 12x by 2021 compared to English with 2x growth.

Social media and Digital news helped the vernacular growth in India in 2017. The future torchbearers if this growth by 2021 will be e-tailing and digital classifieds.

III. OTT Video

On-demand video platforms cross 100mn+ users in India with Hotstar leading the pack.

Vernacular content consumption is huge on OTT platforms, as Tier 2 and 3 cities drive the maximum user growth. Mobile is the new primetime, as people who don't watch TV catch their favorite genres of entertainment on their mobile devices, especially sports

IV. OTT Audio

OTT music contains 72% revenues of the overall Indian music industry!

Increasing competition and launch of several new players in this space in the last 2 years- with a focus on exclusive content/ originals in the audio space.