10 India ICT Market Developments to Watch for in 2011

1. Consolidation is a very strong likelihood in the telecom market and even a few pan-India operators getting acquired shouldn’t come as much of a surprise
2. 3G will fall short of becoming a mass consumer phenomenon, marred by fragmented licenses and delayed rollouts, among other things
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
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
5. At existing and expected price points, the tablet PC segment is unlikely to realise the threshold required for a big takeoff in 2011, even though there will be sustained buyer interest around the device category
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
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
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 virtualisation would be happening in parallel
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
10. Benefits of government-to-citizen (G2C) services would not be adequately realised, largely due to insufficient access infrastructure, especially in semi-urban and rural areas
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Note: The ‘10 ICT Market Developments to Watch for in 2011’ is based on the author’s understanding and analysis of the Indian market, gained from tracking and watching the developments over the past several years.