India is 2nd Largest Nation for LinkedIn

With 14 million users, India is the second largest nation for LinkedIn. It might have been so all the while. The U.S. is still the leading nation. LinkedIn, which is a professional social networking site, has found takers mostly in English speaking nations — the reason for its success in India and the reason for its mild success in China (1 million users).

Of the 14 million users in India, 7 million login to LinkedIn using their mobile devices. That’s an indication of how popular mobile as a platform

really is. LinkedIn has seen a 300% growth in the last three years, the same period during which smartphones — especially Android phones — have seen a surge in the country.

India recently became the second largest nation on Facebook, too, with 44 million users. The Indian Facebook user count now is nearing 50 million users.

India’s mobile prowess is well established. There are over 900 million mobile connections and a good chunk of the users use web on their mobile phones. Faster mobile internet through 3G services is already in place. However, given that the uptake for 3G has been less than expected, India is all set to leapfrog to 4G technologies.

India is all set to the become second-largest mobile broadband market with as many as 367 million mobile connections. Given 3G’s “success” such a number seems preposterous. I would rather be optimistic with 4G, this time around. The 4G spectrum is currently allocated to very few players, and there is only one player which has pan India presence – Reliance Industries. Reliance is known for its execution and killing the competition (probably its own profits, too) through massive price cuts.

Reliance Industries owned Infotel, which owns the 4G spectrum. The company has just announced that it will install 100,000 towers for its 4G services. Though Reliance doesn’t have much of competition in many circles for its 4G services, it might still have to compete with 3G service providers. This little equation makes India’s mobile broadband market doubly interesting. It’s not surprising then that the growth for social networking services will be coming from mobile.

Facebook has introduced 7 Indian languages to its platform. I don’t think LinkedIn would do anything of that sort but it will still fancy its chances on India’s growing smartphone market.

Via

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