With  industry  experience  of  more  than  12  years,  Sunil  brings  with him  a  wealth  of  experience  and  insights  from  the  Indian  telecom  and  mobile domains.  Prior  to  joining  Opera  Software,  Sunil actively worked in the mobile value added & mobile payment business at Obopay and OnMobile among others.

The number of brands reaching out to their consumers through mobile phones has increased rapidly in the past year. Easy access to feature-rich handsets and affordable data plans has encouraged a majority of Indians to always stay connected and to spend more time with their mobile devices. The digital space has emerged as an integral platform for communications across the length and breadth of the country. The 5 trends for advertisers and marketers to watch in the coming year are as follows:

1. Penetration of tablets boosts traffic towards mobile internet: With a host of Indian and international brands introducing low-cost tablets for Indian consumers, the penetration of these gadgets is growing fast. The rich functionality, big screen, ease of use and portability that these tablets provide will add up the traffic towards mobile internet significantly. Distribution and easy availability of these devices in tier 2 and 3 markets will also fuel mass adoption and give a boost to internet adoption in small towns and cities.

2. More advertising money goes to mobile: We are seeing a growing segment of users who prefer to access the internet through their mobile devices. With more and more budget smartphones and tablets available in the market, more people can enjoy the benefits brought by these advanced devices. This will attract more advertisers to reach their consumers through mobile advertising. According to eMarketer’s research[*1], mobile-ad spending in India was up 110% in 2012 from the previous year. Most of this spend was on mobile search and display advertising. The spending in this category will keep growing in 2013.

3. App economy on Smart TV emerges: 2012 saw the launch of televisions with built-in apps and web access. With consumers showing signs of adopting the connected-homes concept, the possibility of seeing more such TVs with the capability of communicating with mobile devices is high. Additionally, TV app stores also provide another channel for developers to distribute their apps. Developers can easily repurpose existing HTML5 applications running on PCs and mobiles to work on TV.

4. Mobile devices become a new shopping destination and the new currency: E-commerce has grown to become the second-largest website category visited by Opera Mini’s mobile web users in India[*2]. The year-on-year growth of unique visitors to e-commerce sites such as Quikr, Amazon and Flipkart was more than 50% in 2012. Along with this trend continuing in 2013, the hope is that more device manufacturers will support the growth of technologies such as Near field communication (NFC)[*3] and that banks will roll-out large scale mobile point-of-sale solutions in 2013. With organizations like Unique Identification Authority of India and National Payments Corporation of India already working on AEPS (Aadhar-enabled payment system)[*4], mobile devices can play a significant role in driving acquisition-, authentication- and transaction-led services in partnership with carriers and banking correspondents.

5. Mobile creative gets sophisticated: We have found that leveraging the native functions of mobile devices — such as a sophisticated HTML and camera interface — shows a direct correlation with the time spent by a consumer on interacting with the ad unit[*5]. The creative campaigns that have emphasized fun and simplicity catalyze a lot of user interaction and brand stickiness. With the increasing prevalence of smartphones and tablets advertisers will invest in developing sophisticated creative, for consumers on mobile devices, resulting in higher dwell times and interaction rates.

Sunil will be speaking at Panel 4 – Mobile Marketing – Promises of reach V/S Actual Impact