India is the seventh largest country in the world, but when it comes to its population it’s number two just after China. Before I tell you about the most popular mobile OS there, you must bear in mind that lots of parts of India are rural, and lots of people there use their smartphones instead of PCs.
Mobile OS
You may not be aware of the fact that India is the second country with more mobile lines in service, just after China, but it is, and right now there’s a new revolution expected to hit the country thanks to the new trend of inexpensive smartphones.
Now, in first place there’s Symbian OS, with a little over 30% of users, and clearly India’s favourite mobile OS. This has always been this way but lately the OS giants such as Android (12%), Apple (22%)and even Blackberry (14%) are slowly closing in. In fact, experts say that Android’s the one that’s supposed to overtake Symbian in the future The next most used mobile OS are the unknown OS that can be found in Chinese handsets all across the country. These unknown OS account for 6% of the total market share. Finally we find Sony Ericsson’s OS, Bada and Samsungs OS.
PC OS
The fact that Symbian OS is the most used OS for mobiles may have given you the idea that Indian preferences are a little different to Western preferences. If so, you’re not entirely wrong, but when it comes to desktop computers, the vast majority of the country prefer Windows to Linux. So, while Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows Vista… account for more than 96% of the total desktop OS use, Linux accounts for only 3%.
However, these figures are likely to change soon because the Indian government is planning to develop an Indian OS in order to enhance the security of its computer systems, the government says.
