Mobile is immensely popular in India, as evident in new figures out by SMS GupShup that indicate the text-based social network has reached 35 million total users while adding over 1 million each and every month.
These figures show SMS GupShup surpassed July traffic on Facebook (with 21 million unique visitors) and Orkut (with 20 million unique visitors) — two social networks who have long fought for social dominance in the region. Granted, SMS GupShup differs, but it shows mobile’s dominance in India.
There are roughly 550 million mobile phone users in the country and only 50 million web users, according to the company. With a 10 to 1 mobile-to-PC ratio and SMS serving as the most popular communications platform, the market is ripe for SMS GupShup to take off, which it obviously already has. The startup currently processes more than 500 million messages a month and accounts for over 5 percent of all texts sent within India.
The company has leveraged its massive user base into a profit machine as well, using its “groups” feature to create SMS-based communities around brands on the network. With over over 3.5 million groups surrounding brands such as Microsoft, eBay, pepsi, Nokia, Ford, and Dell, the startup is on to something huge.
