Kavitha R. Gowda, K. S. Gopalakrishna |
Assistant Professor, Department of Management, CMS Business School, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
Abstract
India lives in villages! Rural India is a significant market as
68-70% of India lives in villages. Starting from the Father of Nation
to industrialists, it has been predicted and noticed that the future
of India lies in its villages. Many marketers (HUL, Dabur, LG, Chik
Shampoo, Hero Honda, Mahindra, etc.) have made revenue of
35-45% from rural market1. Today, mobile phones are more than
voice communication and have become most important and integral
part of life due to various advantages in one product such as -
alarm, radio, watching movie/videos, speaking, Whatsapp, access
to Facebook, mails, information search, video call, etc. India being
big in population and growing economy, with greater population
living in villages with improved literacy rates, TV penetration,
improved infrastructure, governments and industrialists schemes
to improve and tap rural market, is thus a potential market for
mobiles too.
Rural market being a significant part of Indian economy, and
telecom being a fastest growing sector, this paper focuses on
understanding the buying behaviour of rural consumers towards
mobile phones from the rural consumers of two villages of Mandya
district in Karnataka.
Keywords: Acceptability, Affordability, Availability, Awareness, Rural Market
View PDF