Facebook-BCG report on the mobile category reveals digital to influence 7/10 Indian mobile consumers

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated digital adoption in India as an increasing number of people shop online and small businesses find strategies for revival. The pandemic also has led to mixed spending sentiments from mobile consumers. With social distancing and a more remote lifestyle, mobile has become even more ‘essential’ in a consumer’s daily life whether it comes to online shopping, consuming digital content or most importantly connecting with the world.

Facebook India in association with Boston Consulting Group released the second report of Turn the Tide sharing insights on how mobile manufacturers can leverage digital adoption to drive business resurgence in the time of COVID-19 and beyond.

The growth of social media, digitization of infrastructure with the availability of low-cost products and increasing dependency on mobile during the pandemic is expected to boost the demand for mobile phones in the region.

Mobile advertising in India has been making major inroads in the past couple of years. The study also found that as consumers were triggered to replace their existing phones, at least 70 per cent of urban consumers for mobiles are likely to be digitally influenced.

Sandeep Bhushan, Director and Head, Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook India, said, “We know that digital influence has significantly increased across the path-to-purchase - up to 70% for some categories. We are now seeing businesses convert this increased digital influence into tangible business outcomes. A significant digital acceleration has happened on the back of social media, and with 400M+ Indians connected on the Facebook family of apps in India, we play a consequential role in the consumer journey. The opportunity for businesses now is to adopt new solutions that are now available, across the funnel - replicate in-person experiences by bringing alive virtual experiences, focus on efficiency and truly incremental outcomes by platform, and leverage friction-less ways of staying in touch with the consumer in times of physical distancing.”

Additionally, he pointed out three consumer trends that will have a higher impact on the mobile category.

1.  Post-COVID increase in digital influence: Percentage of mobile consumers using digital to discover, research or compare products has grown from a pre-COVID figure of 50-55% to 70& presently.
2. Increase in online share for mobile phones: In value terms, online share likely to increase from a pre-COVID figure of 38% to 45% in the next two years.
3. Consumers’ expectations from online purchase experience: Key barriers to online purchase of mobiles need to be addressed.

Asim Warsi, Senior Vice President, Samsung India, said, “As India's largest consumer electronics company, we have taken the onus to create new shopper journeys to aid physical distancing by leveraging our digital technologies with our deep retail presence in India. Facebook is our partner in this journey of helping our retail channel discover and target local consumers digitally. In addition, we have enabled consumers to purchase our mobile and electronic products online, whilst getting the deliveries offline from their neighborhood Samsung retail stores. Also, we are now delivering our financing solution - Samsung Finance+ - to the consumers' doorsteps. These digitally forward initiatives have helped us make a sharp recovery post lockdown.”

The report also shares some steps business can take across the funnel to realign to the changing media landscape, make informed decisions to win in the new normal.

• Virtual launch toolkit for product launches: Digital enablers like AR/VR and live streaming to enhance virtual product experience and comparisons. 
• Drive Digital Influence: Instagram and Facebook as a natural habitat for the influencer community. Partner with creators and influencers for branded content.
• Replicate in-person experience: Facilitate virtual in-purchase query resolution via tools like WhatsApp Messenger and Chatbots.

To know more, read the full report here: https://bit.ly/37Qk3cQ

Disclaimer: The views, suggestions and opinions expressed here are the sole responsibility of the experts. No Forbes India journalist was involved in the writing and production of this article.