Indians mostly use m-comm to pay mobile bills

Indians may have logged on to the internet in a big way but they still have a long way to go before they take to m-commerce.

A study conducted by consultancy firm A C Nielsen on the usage and attitude in the Indian m-commerce market shows that the 1,012 m-commerce users surveyed by A C Nielsen in seven cities are currently using the service predominantly to pay mobile bills.

Of the activities done through mobile commerce, clearing of mobile bills is at 52%.
Interestingly, after mobile bill payment, it is popular for buying movie tickets. It accounts for 15% of a user’s most often conducted activity on mobile. Other transactions that Indians are carrying out on their mobile are paying their monthly and electricity bills but this usage smaller at 10%.

Online shopping on mobile phones is just 4% while flight booking, restaurant bill and insurance premium payment constitute 2%. M-commerce for paying at retail stores, banking and other such transactions languished at 1%.

Mobile users have not yet explored this mode of payment for gifts, school admission, donation and subscription payment.

The average value of mobile transaction is Rs 2,614 per use, which the consultancy firm said was moderate, and percentage of regular users was 60% against 40% one-time users.

“This (average value of transaction) is understandable given that most users are utilising the service to pay for regular utility bills,” Neilson report says.

Currently, the m-commerce market is split between eight players with PayMate leading with 40% share, followed by Oxycash with 20% and Mcheck with 19%.

There are many users that have moved away from m-commerce - termed as lapsers in the study. One of the major reasons for a high number of lapsers is the slow network speed of mobile service providers. Concerns over security of personal data was another reason m-commerce stilled lagged in the domestic market.

Faulty transactions, complicated process and no online receipt were other culprits for m-commerce not taking off.

But with a high degree of consideration for probable use of m-commerce in future at 33%, the service may pick up once these issues were taken care of.

Another facilitating factor could be the growing population of internet users in India as 97% of the m-commerce users were internet users with only 3% being non-users of internet.