The other day I was scrolling my Twitter feed and I came across this article which states that the number of smartphones shall double by 2022: Smartphone users in India to double by 2022. I was intrigued to know how SMS shall still play a key role in 2020 and even post 2020. My takeaway on it below.
Key takeaway points in article are:
- How the Internet usage shall increase multiple times
- How 5G will affect users
- The internet used in 2022 might be more than what has been used in the 32 years of the existence of the internet as per Cisco’s Visual Networking Index (VNI)
- Impact on smartphone manufacturers and their margins
But this is not what I am happy about.
Smartphone users will increase and so shall the traction of services sold online. New users exposed to a new world online shall create demand and that will push businesses to provide better services. But how will these businesses communicate with new services and customers? Will the SMS play a key role in 2020?
Oppurtunities for Web and App developers
Website and application developers, please take the article mentioned above as a reference point and this post as a guide in the long term journey. Users in India will turn to basic mobile phones and then towards smartphones. Looking at the state of economy in India the user in the rural areas normally starts with a basic cell phone. This cell phone is capable of receiving an SMS out of the box in any part of the country, provided there is network connectivity. Basic cell phone do not require any application to be installed to receive or send sn SMS.
With the launch of Reliance Jio a new network by Reliance Group, the telecom space in India has changed. The cost of making a voice call to people and the Internet connectivity provided for almost negligible cost has also changed the landscape in telecom industry.
Growth of cell phone users
We first look at the Indian economy from the point of view of rural areas. Online businesses generate more revenue from rural areas than urban ones in initial phases (esp e-commerce websites selling goods).
Let me give you an example to explain my viewpoint. Just as an SMS today is used to inform the customer about the purchase they made on an e-commerce website or the ticket they have booked online for a movie show, the same principles can be applied to users in the future.
Growth in rural area
A farmer can go to a government or private sector enterprise to buy things he needs, such as fertilizers and chemicals for the crops he grows. The farmer visits the nearest government establishment to buy the chemicals and fertilizers. The vendor can use the SMS instead of pen and paper to provide the receipt of money for the purchase made by the farmer assuring the farmer that the purchase is duly recorded in the system. This will reduce the need of stationary saving the cost for the customer and government.
Thus, SMS can play a key role in being a standard for proof of transactions.
Growth in Urban areas
Now if you look on the urban side the number of smartphone user too will increase obviously. In Tier-1 and Tire-2 cities, the smart phones purchase will increase hence the number of users will also increase on online platforms. People will be exposed more in numbers towards the online facilities. This will again drive the need to communicate with them automatically from back-end systems which can be only done with the help of a simple SMS.
The SMS shall play a key role for automatic communication from back end systems.
Web and App Developers should keep this in mind that the SMS will be the key media to communicate between both the Rural and Urban areas which will use a mix of smart phones, basic phones and even the next league of 5G enabled phones. The features and benefits of using an SMS have been outlined by us in our previous post Is SMS relevant today?.
Thus SMS is the only method or media that can help other developer or service or an application to solve the best to the consumer and will continue to serve the customer post the year 2020 too.
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