Trends and Future of Mobile VAS in India

Trends and Future of Mobile VAS in India

After a deep research and analysis i have come to following observation and predictions for mobile VAS future in india :
* Due to current economic condition and recessionary environment, consumer has become more Cost conscious
* Mobile social networking to increase tremendously
* Mobile applications to increase tremendously specially LBS, Utility applications
* Next revenue source would be Mobile advertising
* In India like demographics and consumerism, Sachet pricing and pulse pricing to play an important role
* Big players like google need to increase visibilty of their labs and mobile application through branding and promotion
* Mobile gambling also to emerge as new avenue
* TV games, contest with real time interaction with mobile will also grow
* Inter operator services should be implemented with one agreed flat rate
* Mobile advertising should be according to segments, demographics
* Focus should be more on existing customers rather acquiring new customers
* Viral and Guerrilla marketing strategies should be implemented to save cost and increase mass reach

Views and reviews are invited and would be most appreciated.

Ashish Kite
+91 9999590542

Some key stats for Mobile & Telecom proffesionals to know :

Mobile penetration :

China : 47 %
India : 32 %
USA : 88%
Indonesia: 57 %
Brazil: 75%
Pakistan: 52 %
Bangladesh: 33%


INDIAnomics:

• Population of 1.15 bn expected to grow by 1.4% per year
• GDP forecast to continue to grow, although somewhat slower over next 2-3 years
• GDP per capita expected to increase by ~80% from 2008 to 2013

Mobile spend in India : 2.4% of GDP

• GDP per capita to grow by 80% over next 5 years
• Continued sharp price reductions and MoU growth will be limited by spectrum
• ARPU decline expected to slow down as share of low-ARPU net adds relative to total subscriber base will decrease over time

Stay tuned for more facts and figures ....

As per data released by Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), India’s GSM subscriber increased to 315.7 million in June end. The GSM based operators added about 9 million users in June, up from 8.3 million in May. However, this data does not include user figures for Reliance Telecom.

Bharti Airtel became the first operator to cross the 100-million subscriber mark, ending the month with 102.3 million users. They acquired 2.8 million subscriber base in June.

Source: COAI

Mobile value-added services (m-VAS) are services, which offer differentiation and the ability for mobile operators and/or service providers to charge a premium price for the services offered. In simple terms it is anything but the regular phone voice conversation we make over the mobile network.

Mobile VAS includes services such as:

1. SMS (short messaging services) – Text messages of 160 characters : P2P (peer-to peer) and A2P (Application to peer)
2. MMS (Multimedia messaging services) – Send photos, images, screen savers, videos, wallpapers etc.
3. USSD (Unstructured supplementary Service Data) – Interactive menu based services
4. CRBT (Caller Ring Back Tone) – Plays pleasant music for the callers
   Video streaming – Watch on demand movies, TV serials, live sports matches
5. Mobile advertisements – Post banners, promotions, sales discounts
   Polls and contests– Voting for your favorite contestants by sending SMS to the given short code
6. Location based services – Friend finder, restaurants, malls etc
7. Bulk SMS – Send greetings, compose one sms to multiple end-users simultaneously based on festivals, occasions, promote retail sales etc.
8. m-commerce – Banking and secure financial transactions
   Social networking – Instant messaging (Mobile 2.0), sharing video, pictures, presence services, blogging
9. IN services (Intelligent Network) – Call divert, call forward, televoting etc.
10. Infotainment services – Sports news, current affairs, weather reports etc
11. Surfing the Internet – browsing and content download through WAP portals

List is just endless...you imagine and it is VAS..

Some new stuffs on the blocks are m- Couponing, m-ticketing, Invertising and much more..

Internet usage based on demographics

In India, SMS (A2P and P2A) and VAS content download is very popular amongst the mobile users. Let us take a look at some real numbers, which is collected, analyzed by surveying ~10K consumers (mobile users). In our previous article we talked about “Significance of Market research based on demographics and geographics“, it can be noticed (refer chart), men use their mobile phones more than women for browsing the Internet (54:46 – Male: Female). Amongst the various services available on the Internet, men and women both use Internet mainly for searching information through search engine or for email purpose.

SMS statistics based on demographics

Another popular service in Mobile VAS is SMS. Take a look at the SMS report, SMS related to downloading of ringtones, wallpapers are the most popular category cite to have received.

9 out of 10 females recall receiving SMS related to downloading wallpapers compared to around 8 out of 10 males. Categories that males recall include things related to contests or financials products (loans, investments etc). The above report includes subscribers of all cellular operators in India and mobile users are spread across various parts of India.

Reference Source : http://vitalanalytics.wordpress.com

AIRCEL DID WHAT BMC COULD'T.... :-)

Great and novel Advertising Fundaa.. by aircel

Give me time... I don't even have a mail id: Nilekani

"Give me more time... I don't even have an e-mail ID," an exasperated Nandan Nilekani said on the sidelines of a book launch by Pearson Education on Thursday.

Nilekani, who has been appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [ Images ] to head the National Authority for Unique Identity, has been in the news for providing a unique identification number to all Indians. The Unique Identification Authority of India is being established under the aegis of the Planning Commission.

When asked where his office would be (Nilekani is sitting in the Planning Commission office currently), the former co-chairman of Infosys [ Get Quote ] said that, as of now, he did not even have an e-mail id. As for what his priorities would be with regard to the ambitious UID project that would create a 'national verification process', he said: "Give me more time. Wait till August 15."

The UID intends to enable a unique identity, which will ensure that people have a unique number. This is also expected to help in creating a national verification process, and create a national enrollment capability as it would be a database of Indian citizens.

The government has earmarked an initial budgetary allocation of Rs 120 crore for the UID project in the fiscal year 2009-10. In fact, in 2008, the government implemented a pilot project for a 'Multi-purpose National Identity Card in 13 districts of 12 states and one Union Territory wherein more than 1.2 million identity cards were issued to people above 18 years of age.

The unique ID will require creation of a database that links an individual to a unique identifier that remains constant over his lifespan, like parentage, date and place of birth. The card automatically gets activated as a voter identity card at the age of 18.