mig33 – a mobile community, has released a report called ‘Mobile First User Survey’ where they have analysed the responses of 360 members of their service.In the survey, various parameters have been covered and smaller cities have been give preference.

Findings

• Access to Internet - 100% of the respondents of the survey use Internet on the mobile phone. This could be attributed to the fact that majority of the users of Mig33 are in mobile first cities. Followed by 35% who use Internet on their computers at home, 21% on a computer at a cyber cafe while 11% use on a computer at work.Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities rely on mobile phones and computers at cyber cafes as their access to the web. Very few households have an Internet connection at home in Tier 3 cities.
• Social Networks in use – It is known that Facebook is used more than Orkut in India but in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, Orkut is more popular and widely used as compared to Facebook. 92% of the mobile first community in Tier 1 cities is also on Facebook but this drops to 48% in Tier 3 cities. As for Twitter, there is higher usage in Tier 1 cities with nearly 50% penetration but it drops significantly to approximately 30% in Tier 2 and 10% in Tier 3 cities.
• Social media usage – In all three categories, there are different purposes of using social media. In tier 2 cities, 64% of the users are present on social networks to meet new people and interact with them. 1 in 3 people in Tier 2 and 1 in 2 people in Tier 3 cities use social media for entertainment. In Tier 1 cities, most usage by people is to connect with friends who already exist on social networks.
• Time spent on social media – There is longer duration of social media activity per session in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. In comparison, Tier 1 city users tend to spend lesser time on social media, most likely, to keep a tab on updates and recent activity on the networks.
• Virtual goods and spending – Virtual gifts and goods market is expected to grow immensely all over the world and in India as well. According to a report at the beginning of the month, over 40 million virtual gifts were sold on mig33 in 2010. In terms of popularity, love/dating/flirting virtual gifts and avatars do well over the other categories of religious/festivals, sports and others (general greeting, food items etc.) . This trend is seen in all three categories of users taken in the sample base. Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities tend to use more love/dating/flirting virtual gifts as compared to the users in Tier 1 cities.It is also not a surprise that most people send virtual gifts to impress a friend of the opposite gender. This trend is visible in all three categories. Interestingly, an approximately equal number of users prefer virtual gifts over offline gifts so as to save costs. In Tier 3 cities, it is also seen as a way to show off spending capacity in the virtual world.Spending on virtual goods and avatars is a maximum of Rs.15 per month in all three categories. In Tier 3 towns, almost 80% of the users spend lesser than Rs.15 per month. In comparison, 20% of the users in tier 1 cities spend more than Rs.30 per gift in a month. This can also be understood from the fact that more users in tier 1 cities have more income at their disposal.

  

  For the purpose of the survey, respondents were divided into three categories – Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and interviewed during the January – February 2011 period. Tier 1 cities include metropolitan cities with large population such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune and Ahmedabad. Tier 2 cities are Indore, Bhopal, Jaipur, Chandgarh, Lucknow, Patna, Cochin, Surat, Baroda and Kanpur. Tier 3 cities are Bharuch, Gwalior, Allahabad, Ajmer, Madurai, Mysore, Belgaum, Rajkot, Ludhiana and Amritsar.

  What are your opinions on the findings from the report? Do share your thoughts.