Indian Farmers Demand More Mobile Phones
During global economic crisis many industries are suffering with low sells and decreasing growth. A recent article from the Wall Street Journal highlights the rise of mobile phone users in India climbing to a record 11 million subscribers this past year.
While India’s stock market is slowing down cellphone companies like Idea Cellular Ltd. are aggressively meeting the demands increasing 10% from last year. Increase subscribers are making India the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world and there are little signs of it slowing down.
In rural villages, farmers use cell phones to find the latest market price on products like coconuts, rice, jasmine and buffalo milk just from a dial on the phone rather than catching a bus 50 miles into town. With cell phone towers available in the village, farmers can save time and energy while working in the fields.
The rapid demand for cellphones are from people who typically earn less than $1,000 a year. Many are part of the landless Indian population who are not affected by the declining city real estate prices or falling stocks. Since majority of them have little access to regular landline networks each time a wireless tower comes into the village a farmer buys their first cell phone for convenience as well as an investment.
India has a national penetration rate of less than 30%, proving there is still room for an untapped market in a country of over 1 billion people. In comparison to the U.S. where more than 80% of the population have mobile phones India is continuing to discover its digital communication networks in places where email and text messaging is nearly existing.
Will the farmers have a reverse affect on market prices once they are equipped with more mobile phones to help them become more efficient entrepreneurs?
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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2 Comments, Comment or Ping
gzliuzw
There is a similar situation happening in China these years.
I guess that explains why big phone companies are shifting their priorities from developed countries to developing countries such as India, China, Brazil.
Feb 11th, 2009
rubir
It is amazing how the mobile technology is growing overseas! In my country, Mexico four years ago a researcher estimated that Mexico would reach about 60% of cell phone penetration by 2008. In 2005 experts estimated that Mexico would reach about 80% penetration. And it keeps growing as many people in Mexico have more than one cell phone.
Feb 13th, 2009
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