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Light mobile apps need of the hour

CERC says smartphone users concerned about net speed

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Mobile applications that do not consume much space are the need of the hour, was one of the inferences derived after a survey of a pattern of usage of mobile applications by users in India. Surveyors feel that with more and more third party apps being downloaded, handset-makers sho-uld have most popular apps preinstalled in the handset.

Ahmedabad-based Consumer Education and Research Centre (CERC) along with Chase India, a public policy consultancy firm, recently released a report “Understanding Consumer Choice Towards Mobile Applications”, based on a consumer survey, conducted by Nielsen, to understand the behavioural pattern of Indian consumers. In the primary phase responses were taken from 8,000 users across 20 states, followed up by interviews of 3,776 respondents in the second phase.

“Respondents complained that apps are using too much of the space, which results in slowing down of handset. This is especially true in villages and semi-urban areas. There were complaints of exhaustion of memory space even after using SD cards to expand memory,” said Rashmi Goyal, senior manager – advocacy at CERC.

Respondents were also not happy with the speed of internet. Data securtiy is a major aspect that is neglected, according to Goyal. “Many apps are very intrusive and seek personal details of the user, even though these are not related to the content of app. “While app developers seek information from the users, often there are permissions which a user can deny and still use the app. However, it is also found that if permissions are denied, the app would not work at all and so users permit access to data, even if they are not willing to share,” said Goyal.

The survey found that users use competing apps for similar use like messaging, cab service, music and internet browsers among other categories as well. 

“The mobile app market in India is very competitive, giving consumers a wide range of choice between multiple apps for the same function or service. At the same time, as the internet penetration continues to deepen in India and new users begin to use mobile applications, it is imperative to educate the new users about tools that they can use to protect their data in the digital ecosystem,” said Kaushal Mahan, lead-technology practice at Chase India.

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