How one billion mobile phones can change India

Last month, India became the second country in the world after China to cross one billion mobile phone connections.

This makes the little device we hold in our hands and place by our bedside every night the most used technology gadget in history. Consider the numbers: there are 160 million television sets in India. And just 120 million radios.

As prosperity seeps through the countryside, even more mobile phone growth is possible. In advanced economies like the United States, France, South Korea and Finland, there are more mobile phones than people. For example, South Korea with a population of 50 million has 56 million cell phones.

While the number of mobile phones will eventually plateau in India, there's still room for growth in the next few years to around 1.40 billion mobile connections. (China currently has 1.27 billion mobile phone connections.) Driving this growth of course are the world's lowest handset and usage prices. New phones with basic features retail from Rs 1,500 ($22) upwards. Full feature smartphones start at around double that.

Average monthly usage is often as low as Rs 200 for 2G voice services. Even high-quality 4G packages cost less than Rs 1,000 a month. The national launch of Reliance Jio's 4G service in March could drive prices down even further.

India, however, remains a mobile-poor country in terms of internet speed connectivity. Call drops are frequent. Spectrum is in chronically short supply. Download speed is abysmal.

Despite these shortcomings, the mobile phone is today India's leading "enabler". It allows farmers to get the latest weather forecasts in realtime to help plan crop seeding, fertiliser use and harvesting. It enables them to get the latest mandi prices so that middlemen don't skim off excessive profits.

The direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme, which sends subsidies to Jan Dhan Yojana bank accounts, bypassing intermediaries, is bedrocked on mobile phones. Once mobile payment banks and payment wallets enlarge their footprint, mobile phones will become part of a larger financial and social transformation.

Most start-ups are moving to mobile-only apps. The growth of taxi aggregators like Uber and Ola, food delivery companies like Zomato and Faasos and hotel bookers like Oyo Rooms and Zo Rooms depend on how quickly mobile usage moves from voice (2G) to data (3G) to advanced applications including video streaming (4G).

India's start-up ecosystem is meanwhile exploding. It is set to overtake Britain with the world's second largest number of annual start-ups behind the United States. As mobile phone usage surges, so will mobile apps across sectors.

But the real gamechanger in India's mobile phone revolution is its socially transformative nature.  

India has long been a hidebound society, tied to religion, caste and language. Mobile connectivity will level the playing field across jobs, ease rural-to-urban mobility, and catalyse gender equality.

Technology makes the world flatter. Women were disadvantaged in an era where most jobs involved hard labour in factory work. As India moves towards a service economy - from  hotels and airlines to call centres, software, retail and other people-facing jobs - the traditional disadvantages women faced are reducing.

With economic empowerment comes gender empowerment - and equality. This is already manifest in urban India where successful women in the workplace have even changed the power equation within families. Economic independence has led to a subtle shift towards greater gender equality in urban India.

Mobile phones are at the leading edge of this key social change. Wherever technology makes jobs less dependent on women having to commute to work or do labour-intensive work, women benefit.

One billion mobile phones is therefore more than just a number. It presages a new mobile economy where traditionally disadvantaged sections of society based on gender, caste, religion or region get equal opportunities in a flatter playing field.

A recent statistic underscores this change: Nearly 30 per cent of students taking the main joint entrance exam (JEE) for the IITs are now women.