Smartphones set to overtake PCs in India

MUMBAI, INDIA: India is, undoubtedly, an emerging market for mobile phones. If Gartner Inc's prediction comes true then sales of smartphones will reach 461.5 million in 2011 and rise to 645 million in 2012.

In 2011, sales of smartphones will overtake shipments of PCs (364 million). Combined sales of smartphones and tablets will be 44 per cent bigger than the PC market in 2011.

More of these devices will find their way into enterprises as employees entering the organization will expect to be allowed to use them.

Consumerization, app stores and mobile ecosystems are causing a proliferation of new applications and services in the enterprise.

Employees increasingly seek to take full advantage of better browsers and innovative applications from app stores.

Gartner estimates that 18 billion apps will be downloaded in 2011, up 114.5 per cent from 2010 and will rise to 31 billion in 2012.

Consumerization is now the primary driver of the mobile universe, and CIOs must be ready to embrace a range of more-flexible approaches to their mobile strategy, according to Gartner.

“The landscape of devices and user needs is changing," said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. “CIOs are facing mass-mobility, and it is expected to grow rapidly.”

Employees are behaving more like consumers, demanding a wider choice of devices, exploiting consumer devices and applications from app stores, and adopting new strategies such as ‘bring your own’ (BYO) IT, where employees use personally-owned tablets and smartphones for work.