India: Men Browse, Women Text

By Tech Wire Asia | 14 May, 2012

Smartphones are a relativel new technology, but walk into any major city, you see men and women touting their touch screen smartphones. Most of them would probably be dominated by Samsung, but what do they really do with these newfangled contraptions? To start with, men and women use smartphones differently. The difference is in the amount of time spent on each activity.

As per a recent study by Nielsen, Women spend more amount time on smartphones than men. If we dig deeper, men spend 50% more time browsing the web on their smartphone than women. This probably ties back to the general behavior of … no wait, I’m not going to comment on that.

Unsurprisingly, women spend 3 hours more on calls every month as compared to men. Women spend 20 hours a month on an average on calls and texting which is 33% more than men. Texting isn’t really a feature brought to life by Smartphones. Texting is a feature which is as old as the digital mobile phone itself. Come to think of it, this is how phones have been used for more than a decade now. The “smart” factor doesn’t really kick in.

The real meat of a Smartphone comes with how users use apps. Women spend four times more time on Instant Messaging than men. Now that’s more like it. When it comes to apps though, women only install 11 apps per month compared to men’s average of 16 apps per month.

Men and women spend the same amount of time on email and an App Store. It’s strange then that men download more apps than women. Maybe women are choosy or maybe men like to try new stuff. WhatsApp, Google Talk and Nimbuzz are the popular hangouts for women, Men are more likely to consult the navigation or maps app on their smartphones.