Vodafone India today announced their half yearly financial results for the 6 month period between April-September, 2013. Their total revenue for this period was Rs 18,480 crore, which is an increase of 13.5% compared to last year.

But the single most important growth which was observed in Vodafone's financial result was revenues from Internet (Data) usage: 76.5% increase compared to last year.

Between April to September, Vodafone customers spent Rs 1500 crore on using Internet on their smartphones, and this suggest us that mobile usage among Indians is still witnessing a robust growth rate. This amounts to 9% of service revenues, which is a kind of record of Vodafone. Indians have never used Internet so lavishly in the past!

Vodafone has 4.2 crore data users, out of which 45 lakh are 3G users. During this period, these 45 lakh 3G customers used 634 MB/user of data, which increased from 419 MB/user in the last year. Another crucial observation was that smartphone usage has penetrated to 10.7% of total user base.

As per the financial results, the overall revenue growth of 13.5% was witnessed due to three main reasons:

• Price hardening (although Vodafone had slashed 3G charges by 80% this Diwali)
• Strong growth in voice minute usage and data usage
• Partial effect of seasonality and regulatory changes which happened during the period.

With a healthy operational free cash flow of Rs 4770.06 crore, Vodafone witnessed an increase of 41.2% compared to last year.

In the same period, Vodafone spend Rs 1908 crore on capital expenditure such as setting up infrastructure for data usage, towers and customer service.

Highlights

• 15.5 crore people in India used Vodafone services via a giant network of 116,500 sites
• 8.3 crore of these customers reside in rural areas; which is almost 50%
• If we observe the whole Indian telecommunications industry, then Vodafone India has successfully sliced out 21.9% market share, which saw an increase of 0.9% compared to last year.
• Average Revenue Per Minute stood at 46.7 paisa, which is an increase from 44 paisa last year, for the same period
• Average Revenue Per User was Rs 200, with an active and loyal userbase of 96%.
• Vodafone Business Services is another area which is witnessing tremendous growth. Right now, 10% of all revenues are originating from business services with 45 lakh business customers.
• Vodafone implemented Machine to Machine solutions on Mahindra Reva, which made it as India's first connected car on Vodafone's network
• At 96 Lakh, Vodafone has the largest postpaid customer base in the country.
• Overall, Vodafone is the third biggest telecommunication company in India, after Airtel and Reliance communications.

Vodafone India team would be certainly buoyed by this excellent results. They have already stated in the past that once their tax issues are resolved, an IPO is on the cards. And their M-Pesa mobile payment product is also getting traction, with ICICI bank partnering with Vodafone to launch their services in North-East.

It would be interesting to observe how their biggest competitors right now, Idea, reacts to these initiatives by Vodafone.

Link to Results Press Release [pdf]

Micromax is going global and local at the same time. While there are plans in place for the company to launch in Russia in the near future, company is also planning to start the assembling of the phones in India.

According to Micromax Co-founder Rahul Sharma, "We have a plant in Rudrapur and have already started assembling of phones on trial basis there. It will be commercially launched in the first quarter of next year."

The keyword here is trial basis.

It can mean a lot of things and there can be many hindrances that might deter Micromax from finally taking the step.

He also mentioned that they want to take their turnover to INR 6000 crore by the end of the current financial year.

However, the two major hindrances that Micromax must be looking at:

1. The Cost of Assembling

The phones that are assembled outside and brought in India will have the cost of transport and duties added to them. If the assembling in India proves to be at least equivalent if not cheaper then it will be a practical decision to continue the assembling of phones.

2. The Hassles of Managing a Plant

Maintaining a supply chain is very different from handling a plant. The demand of workers, handling of machines, and other factors are something that Micromax would like to have a smooth functionality. If it turns out troublesome, Micromax might prefer to not do that.

Micromax has been expanding in the higher segment slowly and steadily. A few years back, no one would have thought a Micromax phone more than Rs. 5000 and now Micromax has phones over the price of Rs. 20000.

They have Hugh Jackman as their brand ambassador which is a clear indication of the lofty goals they have in mind. They want to reach many countries in the world and at the same time, strengthen their position in India. It was the number two company in India in Q2, as per IDC, with over 22% market share in smartphones.

With this expansion and reaching higher segment audience, it is a good time for Micromax to strengthen its assembly line. With a plant in India, it can protect itself to at least some extent from the international impacts by keeping the production going. Also, if they can manage to reduce the cost of assembling it would be even better for their profit margins.

Along with this, if Micromax can bring its services at par with the big companies, it might easily achieve its target of becoming a billion dollar company.

So, how many of you are looking forward to a Micromax phone saying- 'Made in India'.

Google recently launched Nexus 5 in the US, and it is safe to say that it matched the frenzy that Apple created with launch of their iPhone and iPads. Infact, in few hours from the it launched on US play store, it sold out. While the official numbers on how many Nexus 5 were sold in first few hours are still not out, it sure will be right up with the iPhones.

While Americans were able to get their hands on coveted Nexus 5 device, Indians had to wait and watch (unless they adopted some tricky ways of procuring Nexus 5 in India from US play store).

But no more – Snapdeal has now listed Nexus 5 on their portal, much earlier than expected and that too at a same price that Google play store in India is expected to offer.

According to the listing, the 16GB Nexus 5 is available for Rs. 28,999/- and what's more, it is also available with EMI options ranging from three months to one year.

• 3 Months EMI: Rs.9666
• 6 Months EMI: Rs.4833
• 9 Months EMI: Rs.3222
• 12 Months EMI: Rs.2417

Currently for pre-orders, users will need to pay Rs. 999/-, which will be deducted from the whole amount just before the order is shipped to you.

Snapdeal will start shipping Nexus 5 from the 4th week of November, which is much earlier than expected.

So, if you were worried about buying Nexus 5 from US, you can go ahead and get on the pre-order list as soon as possible, because one thing is sure, there will be lot of demand for this phone!

Also, keep in mind, due to very high demand, last week of November may get extended further, so be ready for that.

Note: Interestingly, Indiatimes shopping has also listed Google Nexus 5 for sale for a price of Rs. 29,990/- and have mentioned that they have it in stock and will be shipping it in 7 to 11 days!

For any technological product to succeed, it is very important for early adopters to come out and use the product. And globally, early adopters are geeks, teenagers and technology enthusiasts who are always looking forward to try out new technology and fresh ideas.

Among this selective group of users, teenagers constitute nearly 20% of share. And if this highly sought after group decides to ditch a product, then it surely demands attention.

When last month Facebook announced its 3^rd Quarter results, it beat market expectations with total revenues of $2.02 billion, up 60% compared to last year. Total users of the social networking platform had increased to 1.19 billion and daily users had increased 25% to 728 million.

However, two insights from the quarterly report caught the eyes of social media experts and investors which have started troubling them:

• 49% of revenues are being generated from Advertisements shown on Mobile phones
• Teenagers are deserting Facebook like never before

Even Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged this fact, though not officially admitting it:

"One specific demographic I want to address is U.S. teens. There's been a lot of speculation and reporting that fewer teens are using Facebook."

What are the reasons they are leaving Facebook?

Biggest Issue: Privacy

When you mom and dad and uncle and aunties all are on Facebook, then it becomes real tough to protect your privacy. And the issue becomes more prominent, when it to comes to the 'secretive' activities of teenagers. In a way, for a teenager, Facebook is same as Linkedin is for an adult: You know that 'they' are watching you. Due to less privacy features in Facebook, teenagers have decided that this social network isn't for them.

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is an issue which is impacting hundreds of teenagers and children. It has been researched that almost 20% of all students are bullied online, every year. And there have been some ugly instances of bullying on the social network, which has led to suicide as well. Obviously, no teenager would want to participate in such cases. They want a world where only friends are allowed. Although Facebook has taken considerable steps to stop this, teenagers are opting out.

Overwhelming Features on Facebook

Another reason which can be attributed to declining usage by teenagers is the overwhelming features on Facebook mobile app. There is news feed, then messages, events, gaming apps, groups, fan pages and so on. A typical teenager may want a simpler yet easy interface to hang around. Maybe adults love all these features in a single window, but for a teenager, these features may repel him.

Where Are Teenagers Going Now?

The real fun for teenagers is happening right on their mobiles, and the new destination for being social is mobile chat apps. Leading this crusade are the leading chat platforms like WhatsApp; Snapchat; Line; WeChat and KaKaoTalk which solves all their problems.

These immensely popular and fast growing chat applications are like your own private social network: Only your friends are allowed to enter, hence no invasion to their privacy; as only friends are being added in their groups, cyberbullying is non-existent and the features are so minimalist and simple that teenagers simply love them.

In August, a Mashable post on this issue created ripples across the technological world, when a 13 year old wrote a scintillating post "I’m 13 and None of My Friends Use Facebook". Critics dismissed this, stating that a 13 year old's views cannot affect a company as large as Facebook. But the statistics is reflecting some other story. And the trend is not localized to US; its even being witnessed in India.

Some amazing stats and figures related to usage of these chat applications:

WhatsApp is the grand daddy of all chat applications, ever created: 350 million plus active users every month and 14 billion messages a day; Twitter has only about 270 million users. Simply incredible growth.

- SnapChat platform witnesses 350 million snaps (pictures/videos) being shared daily by its 150 million strong user base. This figure of 350 million snaps per day is same as that of Facebook users uploading pictures daily. But Facebook has over 1 billion users. You can assume the growth curve for next few months!

- Line, the popular chat application from Japan has already crossed 10 million registered users from India, and has delivered the fastest ever growth in the country.

Its obvious now that the early adaptors and the geek have moved out of the Facebook ecosystem, and passed on their blessings to these astonishing mobile apps. What is your take in this whole transformation of social media usage?

Are you still using Facebook?

RBI had come up with number of policy changes earlier this year for overseas debit and credit card transactions to curb spate of online banking transaction frauds.

Some of the major changes included mandatory enablement of EMV chip & pin, setting a , threshold limit for international spending and PA-DSS/PCI DSS compliance. Most of these changes were to come into effect by June 2013. After few months of delay, it seems that finally banks have started implementing the said changes by RBI.

Yesterday, I got following email from HDFC in my inbox:

Personally, I have made number of international transactions till date on my HDFC credit card and never faced a problem of any limit. But going forward that will change. Rs. 50,000 limit means that you will not be to spend more than USD 800 in a single day. While smaller transactions will not have problem, it will create a big headache if you are planning to buy anything which is over the spending limit.

Is Rs. 50,000 limit is fixed or Can it be Increased?

It seems that the limit can be increased and it is decided on the users risk profile – In the mail sent by HDFC, the have mentioned that users can change this limit on their card by logging on to their netbanking facility. While it is currently not available, it will be active from December 1st.

What I wanted to know was – Have any other readers got mails like these from their banks (other than HDFC?). And if so, what is the limit?

Do let us know in comments.