Out of the 10 development I had earlier expected to happen in 2011, seven did take place while three either didn’t happen or fell short. Here’s is quick analysis of what happened (or did not) and why:
What the Expectation Was | A Hit or a Miss? | Quick Review |
1. Consolidation is a very strong likelihood in the telecom market and even pan-India operators getting acquired shouldn’t come as much of a surprise | Miss | Regulatory restrictions, which were expected to be eased, remained unfavorable for inter-operator M&As in India. |
2. 3G will fall short of becoming a mass consumer phenomenon, marred by fragmented licenses and delayed rollouts, among other things | Hit | 3G adoption has been lackluster. Active 3G subscribers were barely 3 percent of total mobile subscribers. |
3. Growth in the smart phone segment will top market expectations and comprise around 10% of the overall handset shipment by close of 2011, driven by falling prices and growing consumer awareness and application usage | Miss | Rapid iterations-led improvements packed unprecedented capabilities in feature phones and made the lines blur with the lower-end smart phones. These new generation of rich feature phones, therefore, effectively mimicked smart phones. |
4. Broadband targets will remain elusive, due to disconnect between consumer needs and services being offered. Applications like VoIP will be needed to get an accelerated growth | Hit | At the close of CY 2011, wireline broadband subscribers remained a dismal 13.35 million, compared to 10.99 million a year ago (TRAI data). |
5. At existing and expected price points, the tablet PC segment is unlikely to realize the threshold required for a big takeoff in 2011, even though there will be sustained buyer interest around the device category | Hit | According to various analyst estimates, tablet shipment ranged between 300,000 units and 500,000 units in 2011. This is nominal (3 percent to 5 percent) when compared to PC and smartphone shipments, which were around or upward of 10 million units each. |
6. Netbooks will get more powerful and in-built connectivity for 3G will pick up, leading to enhanced battery performance. Vendors will need to improve design and aesthetics of these devices for their greater consumer appeal and uptake | Miss | Marketers used netbooks more to attract potential PC buyers to stores and then upsell the mainstream notebooks, which became more attractively featured and affordable. (In fact, in 2012, the ultrabook category has gained momentum, but then that is outside the context of this prediction.) |
7. Share of All-in-ones in the desktop market will increase, but vendors will need to bring out more powerful machines in the category and build greater buyer awareness for the devices | Hit | In fact, the all-in-one PCs managed to enthuse the desktop market to a reasonable extent, as these compact devices became more affordable too. |
8. Enterprises will be in an extended phase of IT infrastructure build-out in the wake of an increasingly positive macroeconomic environment even as IT consolidation through virtualization would be happening in parallel | Hit | Various infrastructure categories saw good growth, with some segments seeing convincing double-digit growths. |
9. As market place dynamics get complex, enterprises will feel compelled to go agile in terms of their business and product strategies and therefore adoption of Business Intelligence and Analytics tools will strengthen as a trend, like with ERP in an earlier phase | Hit | Rapid adoption of BI/BA applications and platforms was witnessed across multiple industry segments. |
10. Benefits of government-to-citizen (G2C) services would not be adequately realized, largely due to insufficient access infrastructure, especially in semi-urban and rural areas | Hit | The wide-spread benefits of G2C services are from being realized, as the last-mile connectivity aspect has not been addressed adequately. |
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