Network performance shapes smartphone behaviour: study

Over the last two years, there has been a 57-per cent increase in usage of application usage and 20 per cent rise in terms of time spent by users on smartphones.

On an average, Indian consumers spend over three hours a day on their smartphones and 25 per cent consumers check their phones over 100 times a day. Around one-third of the time spent on smartphones is for using applications and this trend is expected to continue, according to a report by Ericsson ConsumerLab.

Social and chat applications are the reasons why most new users buy a smartphone. However, 40 per cent mature smartphone users say their usage is no longer limited to social purposes. About 24 per cent of smartphone owners use mobile apps such as WhatsApp and WeChat for business purposes to sell products and services, expanding their reach to new customers.

Without the availability of Wi-Fi or fixed broadband at home, eight in 10 smartphone users will continue to access mobile internet using mobile broadband.

''Maturity is an important dimension in mobile broadband behaviour. Mature users consume almost twice as much data as new users. As consumers explore more apps and services relevant to their interests and needs, mobile broadband usage is set to grow,'' said Ajay Gupta, vice president, strategy and marketing, Ericsson India.

Mobile video usage is evolving, with mobile broadband users spending 61 per cent more time on video applications compared to non-users. For one-third of consumers, smartphones are the only screen they use to view online mobile videos.

The most popular way of consuming mobile videos is through chat applications, with one in every three user watching videos shared by friends. Consumers prefer to stream videos rather than download, but 4 out of 10 mobile videos are interrupted by buffering or stalling.

Indian smartphone users now spend 191 minutes per day on smartphones, compared to 128 minutes watching TV. Network performance shapes smartphone behaviour with satisfied users experiencing three times better web page load times, spending more time streaming videos via  apps and staying connected using mobile broadband for a longer period of time.

Indian smartphone users often build perceptions based on how often the internet connection drops, how quickly web pages load, and time taken for apps to download.

Other top perception drivers include indoor coverage and time taken to transfer files on chat apps.

Consumers are spending more time on their smartphones than watching TV. They also show a preference for viewing videos shared through chat and social media.

The Ericsson ConsumerLab study carried out in April-June 2014 among 4,000 smartphone users across 18 urban cities in India.