Smartphones, not computers, drive the use of social media in Gujarat. In a survey by a social media agency, Facebook users from four major cities of Gujarat accessed the social network through their smartphones more than other cities of India, including metros.
For instance, Ahmedabad sees 60 per cent users logged into the networking sites using their smartphones as compared to Delhi, which has 51.6 per cent and Mumbai with 55.2 per cent. Other cities of Gujarat—Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot— too topped smartphone for social media users with over 56 per cent users as compared to major cities of India like Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Jaipur that saw less than 56 per cent users.
Data from the survey by the Ahmedabad-based social media agency, Prabhavya Interactive, suggests that the usage of Facebook on smartphones as a percentage of the total facebook users in the city is substantially higher than the national average. At the national level, feature phones tend to find more favour while as the data suggests, Gujarat seems to prefer smartphones.
"Facebook usage on smartphones seems to indicate that a higher affinity for mobile internet access as well as higher purchasing power. Free social media usage packages from telecom companies is also another reason for the rise," said Aakash Srivastava, social media strategist and founder, Prabhavya Interactive.
Out of the total 832,000 mobile facebook users in Ahmedabad, smartphone users outnumber feature phone users.
"People under the age of 25 are the biggest group of Facebook users in India. The cost of broadband access in India continues to remain substantially high. In comparison, mobile penetration in India is far higher and the cost of network access is very affordable. Add to that the flexibility of being connected to the internet on the go and social network access on mobile phones almost seems like a match made in heaven. With a plethora of promotional offers for free Facebook/Twitter access on mobile from service providers, we expect to see the usage rise even further," said Srivastava.