According to a Nielsen-Informate Mobile Intelligence survey, an average Indian smartphone user spends around 72 per cent of their phone usage time in a day on activities such as gaming, entertainment, applications (apps) and internet related content. The remaining 28 per cent of the time is used for voice calls and text messaging. According to the survey, data usage for 3G users was close to 44 per cent more than 2G users. An Android user installs an average of 19 apps in a month compared to 10 apps for a Symbian user.

Those in the age group of 15-24 years were spending about three hours a day on their smartphones, those in the over 31 year category spent about two hours. Also, the younger smartphone users (15-25 years) spend two hours on browsing and entertainment compared to one hour in the other category (over 31 years). Time spent on chat and SMS stood at about 31 minutes for the younger users against 15 minutes by the other category.

15-25 year olds spend about half an hour on other mundane activities like contact search and alarms, while it is 45 minutes in the case of those over 31 years. It also found that 68 per cent of the 15-24 year olds used a chat app last month as compared to 42 per cent for the 31 year old and above category.

“Today, younger Indians for instance, prefer texting and chat over voice communications and understanding this behaviour better can define data consumption and customer acquisition strategies for operators and handset providers,” Farshad Family, Managing Director (Media), Nielsen India said.

 “On-device metering is a pioneering technology that will for the first time give advertisers, content developers and telecom players an insight into how the mobile consumer is evolving,” Kedar Sohoni, President, Informate Mobile Intelligence has said.