The MoPR Blog

It’s fair to say that India has earned a reputation for competency and excellence in technology. New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore are well established research and development centers, yet mostly known (in the West, anyway) for the work they do on behalf of North American and European companies that come to India to take advantage of a highly capable workforce educated in world class universities and paid lower wages than their North American and European peers. But if you think that India is only producing cutting edge software and devices for foreign companies, you are missing a much bigger picture.

Exciting new Indian companies are bringing to the global market homegrown computing, telecommunication and other technology marvels, many of them disruptive game changers.

Not long after Apple began creating buzz for its forthcoming launch of the iPad tablet, New Delhi based Notion Ink started making its own waves with its planned launch of an Android-based tablet called Adam.

In the mobile handset arena, Karbonn, a company headquartered in Bangalore, Micromax, outside New Delhi in Gurgaon and Spice Mobile, located in Uttar Pradesh, are three Indian companies that have cut into the market share of major global manufacturers such as Nokia, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson within the rapidly expanding India market. These companies produce phones that are often noted to have built-in AM and FM radios (an obvious feature that is strangely absent from phones sold in North America). These companies also produce phones designed to be used as Internet appliances for Web surfing and social networking, a feature universal to all handset manufacturers consumers around the world are using mobile as their primary method of connecting to the Internet in greater numbers every year.

But innovations of these Indian handset manufacturers extend far beyond simple features.

In a market of 1.15 billion people, India has only just surpassed 500 million mobile subscribers, 95 percent of which are on prepaid plans. At roughly 45 percent market penetration, the Indian market is practically a greenfield opportunity when compared to other countries in Asia, Europe and North America, many of which have a penetration rate in excess of 100 percent (in other words, some people have more than one mobile phone plan). Adding to the complexities of the Indian market is a figure startling to many westerners: fewer than 25 percent of households in India have electricity.

Micromax and Spice address these market conditions by producing mobile phones with long lasting batteries, allowing a person to have days – not hours – of talk time, and a month – not a day – of standby time. There are consumers in many markets around the world who can benefit from innovation such as this.
All three companies produce phones that support dual SIM cards, addressing approximately 100 million Indian mobile subscribers who have multiple mobile numbers. Cleverly, the phones switch to the second SIM when the phones are held upside down.

A vibrant community of mobile software companies likewise address the unique conditions of the Indian market with innovative mobile finance, productivity and entertainment software that run on simple “feature” phones to powerful smartphones, like the recently launched line of Spice Android smartphones and tablets.

Supporting this extensive technology marketplace is a growing list of Indian trade publications. The team at Mobility Public Relations has worked with many and read many more. Among our favorites are CellPassion, FoneArena, Telecom Tiger, Tech Tree and 9.9 Media. We are also fond of the MobiGyaan and MobileGyaan blogs. And this list only scratches the surface.

We also quite like the TV show Tech Guru, not just because they covered our clients.

Think of it, even at more than 500 million subscribers – 200 million more people than live in the United States – the Indian mobile market can still more than double! These stats mixed together with India’s universities, talent pool, increasingly connected (and mobile population), and vibrant tech media landscape make India one of the most compelling technology markets as we look toward the next decade of the 21st Century. Just as “made in Japan” was commonly found on devices in the 1970s and 1980s, and “made in China” is found on devices made today, I predict we’ll see many high-end and cutting edge mobile devices with “made in India” in the years to come.

Google Aims To Remake Computers

Quentin Hardy at Forbes details Google’s plans for the Chrome OS and an “ultra-cheap” portable computer in time for Christmas next year. Google is definitely a company with its head in the Cloud. With a host of Internet-based applications, Google is banking that users can do most of their computing online. Years after Sun’s John Gage first said “the network is the computer,” could Google be on the verge of making that vision a reality? Read Quentin’s article to find out.

King of the Cloud

Speaking of cloud computing, Steve Hamm at BusinessWeek reviews Saleforce.com CEO Marc Benioff’s (with Carlye Adler and Josey-Bass) new book, “King of the Cloud”. Based on Hamm’s review, this book looks like a great Christmas present for anyone in technology (hint hint).

By the way, The Economist had a very interesting debate about whether cloud computing is ready for primetime. In this debate, Benioff squared off against Microsoft Business Division chief, Stephen Elop. I already told you how the book review turns out; I won’t spoil the debate. If you want to know the outcome, you’ll just have to read it yourself.

Sending Shockwaves Across the Indian Telecom Industry

Many mobile markets around the world are or are approaching saturation. Some markets count their penetration rate above 100 percent. But at more than 400 million mobile subscribers, India is a hot growth market in a country of 1.14 billion people. As India’s telecom providers build networks and innovate services, a recent move by one of India’s GSM providers, Tata Teleservices (TTSL) is sending shockwaves across the country’s telecom industry. In India Today, a major business publication in India, Kushan Mitra explains the impact of the company’s new per-second pricing plan. TTSL’s per-second pricing plan is the only plan it offers, costing subscribers 1 paise (the Indian equivalent of a penny) per second. To put that in perspective, US carriers charge roughly 360 percent more than TTSL (excluding unlimited calling plans). AT&T’s 1350 minute personal plan runs $79.99 per month. At today’s exchange rate, 1350 minutes would cost $17.40 using TTSL’s 1 paise per minute pricing.

In a second article, Mitra explains how Tata executive Anil Sardana, newly appointed to run TTSL, not only fixed a broken company, but has become a transformative figure in the Indian telecom industry.

In case you miss it

On the other hand, as the US mobile market approaches saturation, a different market dynamic in the competition for mobile subscribers is taking hold. Last week ZDnet blogger Jason Perlow had an excellent post explaining the machinations of the US smartphone market and its ecosystem of carriers, handset manufacturers and smartphone operating systems.