Looking Ahead to 2012

The year Steve Jobs died was a busy one for global tech. The rise of the iPad, the spread of cloud services, the turmoil in smartphones with iPhone and Android knocking out RIM/BlackBerry and Nokia... And in India, too: our first social-network-driven revolution, a half-baked government effort to kill "objectionable" content on Facebook and other social media... Much of the tech action happened in telecom, with 3G and MNP. But IT crossed a landmark, too.

1. Telecom--the 3G, and the crash of margins: 2011 was Indian telecom's biggest year: 3G, mobile number portability (MNP), 175 million new subscribers. But operators are struggling with India's low per-user revenue and high energy costs, and 25 million users asked for an operator switch under MNP. Operators haven't a hope of recovering the $15 billion they blew up on the spectrum auction in 2010.

In 2012: Operators will struggle with giving compelling content, services and pricing, to draw low-spend prepaid users (93% of all users) to spend on 3G data. As users increase, 3G service quality will get worse.

2. Android-and the smartphone explosion: Android, the world's best-selling smartphone platform (250 million worldwide by January 2012) saw high growth in India in 2011. RIM's BlackBerry, despite tottering on the edge of a precipice globally, is still strong in India. The overpriced iPhone is nearly non-existent in India. Nokia still rules here, but is getting pushed to a corner in the smartphone race by Android vendors like Samsung, and BlackBerry.

In 2012: Smartphones sales will double, for the second year running, led by Android, and followed by Nokia/Windows, RIM/BlackBerry and a distant last, the iPhone. Expect a slew of sub-10k smartphones.

3. Akash--the world's cheapest tablet: India's $35 tablet finally launched in October at $60, shocking those who believed it to be vaporware. But it's a long way from success, despite government backing with advance bookings for schools. Yes, the world's cheapest tablet runs Android, has wi-fi, USB and SD. But it has inadequate content, poor battery life, limited apps (its Froyo 2.2 phone operating system supports the GetJar store and not Android Marketplace), cheap construction, and a 7-inch screen not best suited for classroom use.

In 2012: No threat to other tablets, and zero impact on the classroom. The iPad will still rule tablets, despite a spectrum of capable choices from Samsung and Sony.

4. Aadhar-the UID takes off, and stumbles: Piloted in 2010, the Congress-backed Unique ID citizen-database project, Aadhar, took off in 2011. Then it faced its first real test in December, when a Parliamentary standing committee returned the National Identity Act (NIA) bill seeking to transform it into a statutory authority.

In 2012: Despite the big stumble, the UID project continues, headed to become one of the biggest e-gov projects ever, generating the world's biggest database--and, someday, avoiding mindless duplication of citizen data-collection across multiple agencies. The question-mark comes in on its actual utilization--which could slow the project.

5. Size matters--Indian IT crosses $100 billion: Riding the best growth in three years-24% in US dollars in 2009-10-Indian IT had a good year, crossing $100 billion in revenues in 2011 for the first time ever (bigger than IBM, though still not as big as HP or Apple).

In 2012: FY 2011-12 will close with over $115 billion in IT revenues, and $170 billion for ICT (including telecom), still over 10% of GDP. But up ahead, growth could slow in the rest of 2012 across both IT and telecom industry revenues.