WATBlog.com - Web, Advertising and Technology Blog in India &#187; Mobile

Zee News Goes Mobile - Ties Up With One97

Rajiv Dingra — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:07:14 +0000

Its seems to be a trend for news channels to go digital in more ways than one through tie ups. So if Timesnow chose the online medium with a tie up with Nautanki Zee news has chosen to go mobile with a tie up with One97. Through this association mobile users across India can access News directly on their handsets.

This is essentially an sms and voice alert service with technology powered by One97 and content powered by Zee News. Though not launched as yet the release states that there are plans to launch services like Video News Streaming and Citizen Journalism in near future. Probably after 3G becomes a reality in India.

Currently the available news alerts are on genres like general news, sports, business and astrology to all the subscribers. In the future the updates on the breaking news and major happenings captured by Zee News would also be included.

The New media companies going mobile seems to be a continuing trend as recently Web18 went mobile via July systems which also meant that IBN7 and CNN IBN had mobile versions. Then there was also matrubhumi a regional newspaper that went mobile via mobme. Timenow had gone mobile sometime back with reliance communications as partner not sure if that alliance is still active though. NDTV another new channel had also partnered with July systems to launch NDTV active. Besides for these traditional news media companies Mytoday launched nayanaya.mobi which is a news aggregator which makes the websites of these news website mobile friendly as well.

On the whole it seems everyone is gearing up for the mobile revolution in India which is expected sooner given the 300 million plus mobile subscribers and the 8-10 million addition each month.

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At IAMAI Digital Entertainment - Entertainment on Mobile

Rajiv Dingra — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 09:24:46 +0000

The 4th and final panel of the IAMAI Digital Entertainment Conference held at Mumbai this week was on mobile entertainment.

The panelists included:

Viren Popli - Sr. Vice President & Head-Mobile Entertainment, Star India
Probir Roy - Co founder & Director, Coruscant Tec
Manoj Dawane - Chief Executive Officer, Mauj Telecom
Srinivas Gopal - General Manager Marketing, Idea
Salil Bhargava - CEO, Jump Games

Viren Popli - Sr. Vice President & Head-Mobile Entertainment, Star India

The Convenience Factor

All devices spoken so far did not have the C in it. i.e. the convenience and the other advantage is that it is the most penetrated device in India today.

Mobile gets the leftovers’s
No one is creating content for Internet and Mobile - Internet is living off left overs from the TV and print space and adding incremental revenue. Similarly with star we are creating content for TV. When we say that mobile and internet is going to take users away from TV and print then those in TV and print wont engage in internet and mobile content creation. We need to talk instead of incremental revenue. Also this business is nascent as the revenue share is still nominal at 3-5 rupee price point for millions of users on mobile.

Size of the video on the average phone is as good as the youtube size now and the size of the screen wont matter rather than the usability of the device. In 2-3 years there will be 1000+ channels but how do you deliver this given that DTH can screen only 200 channels.

On 3G in India
Im counting on GPRS costs dropping after 3G comes in.

Probir Roy - Co-Founder, Coruscant Tec

Its taken vas 10 years to hit 1B$ it will take 2 years to hit the next billion. India will skip the fixed line model.

Entertainment content will be a key driver of mobile revenues

Anything to do with entertainment in India will be big. VAS driver will be entertainment.

Not Happy with Industry structure

Im not happy with the industry structure and thats why I sold my company to Mukta arts because it helped me go directly to operator. Thats why we did backward integration and tied up with a content provider. So if I lock myself with the source of content which has not been sold on mobile in the last 20 years things are better when approaching an operator.

Manoj Dawane - CEO, Mauj Telecom

On Applications that make sense on Mobile
Most of us talk about what will go on the bearer. Is there an app engaging enough for user and monetizable for advertisers and can attract enough users for operators? Mankind is intrigued by classified like property, matrimony and cars. Even the online has seen successes in these verticals. Can someone build a mobile app around these and build in the numbers?

On Telecom networks and their role in VAS
Content is produced not for a medium but for human beings and a target market. I believe that telecom networks actually act as sachet’s for delivering content in form of ringtones or gprs downloads. VAS of yesterday is commodity of today and VAS of today will be of commodity of tomorrow.
Dissemination of content that telecom networks do is an opportunity for a google for mobile.

On 3G in India
UK went 3g in 2002 and 6 players paid 52 million $ and 3 sold their licences to others. I have a feeling that 3G will be used for voice. As india is a bandwidth starved country spectral efficiency will be used for the first killer app i.e. voice.

Srinivas Gopal - General Manager Marketing VAS, Idea Mobile

Voice is a large market for india and entertainment is consumed despite bearer. We have done rajshri audiosodes and there is a demand for audio content and we have seen good traction on the same.

In japan mobile gaming is very high due to NTT DoCoMo and pc gaming is big in korea due to cyworld Cyber worlds. May be we need a list of what India is playing. Gaming needs to be promoted by celebrities in order to increase adoption.

We are in advanced stages of discussions with news agencies to provide alerts in marathi for commodity prices.

Salil Bhargava - CEO, Jump Games

iPhone Impact

A positive trend is that mobile gaming is showing signs of picking up. Trivia based games for non color phones. In terms of Mmorpg its a long way away. Globally online and mobile gaming the line is blurring. Convergence is being compounded by iPhone from a content perspective.

We are not a Gaming Country. And early games sucked!

Connective gaming in India is tictactoe. Casual gaming is what will do well in India. Mmorpg wont do well that early on the mobile side. Gaming took off on the wrong foot in India as gaming players focus on number of games and not quality or experience of gaming. Most of those games were junk. For a user that was a terrible experience and I have finished a game in 1 1/2 minutes and there were 1000’s of such games and many of them on random bollywood movies.

On Licensing for games
Licensing is still a big part of this biz.. for eg if i put out a salil bhargava football game no one wil buy it. Its hard to build an ip and hence it needs to be a manchester united game.

We are clearly not competing with the console. In india for it to be a viable business we are still a few of years. iPhone is a paradigm shift as far as mobile gaming is concerned. The istore is doing more revenues than any operator. When will impact in India be felt? I think it is a very long time away.

Q & A
Probir questions
If 3G is used for voice and at current price points for voice would it justify the capex for setting up 3G network.

Manoj answers - If I were an operator i would provide premium services for voice on 3G for the corporate.

Viren Popli - You could very possibly see post paid customer gets shifted to 3G and the pre paid stays on 3G.

Srinivas - The killer app for 3G is ugc video and video conferencing. I dont completely agree with Manoj.

Audience - IN UK 3G has driven on deck activity by Orange which had 5 tv channels for 800 rupees for 20 mins. There has been very little off deck activity.

All in all this session was possibly the best in the day with interesting insights from all participants and contradicting views on what will happen when 3G comes in.

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Airtel & BPL Mobile Launch City Search Feature - Airtel Ties Up With AskLaila For the same

Rajiv Dingra — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:26:08 +0000

Telecom players seem to be waking up to the power of local search so both Airtel and BPL seem to have launched local search products that their large subscriber base can use. While BPL Mobile has launched the local search service only in Mumbai, Airtel with its tie up with AskLaila has launched the service across 6 cities i.e. Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Bangalore. The point to note is BPL hasn’t tied up with any player to provide this service atleast not one that has been publicly announced.

How the BPL Mobile service works:

Call *111# to begin the ‘Mumbai Search’. A menu flashes on the mobile phone screen. Simply key in ‘1’ for ‘Mumbai Search’. Enter keywords of what you are looking for in the search tab, with a prefix ‘1’ Eg. 1 Carpenter in Colaba. An instant SMS in return puts an end to your search.

The service is applicable on a USSD as well as the SMS platform, it’s as simple as calling *111# from your BPL Mobile phone, when a menu flashes on the phone screen. The user just needs to press 1, and then key in his query, (Rs 3/response, applicable). Users can also SMS his query directly to 54000, (Rs 3/SMS).

How the Airtel AskLaila Service Works:

The service can be accessed via SMS, USSD and Airtel Live.

Via SMS: Airtel users can text the keyword to get accurate city information. For example, ‘locate pizza gurgaon’ and SMS it to 54321 to get relevant local information free of cost.
Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD): USSD is a faster channel than the text-messaging platform and GPRS. This is an instant messaging type phone service and can be used in even basic phone models. This is accessible under Airtel Live USSD portal by dialing *321#
Airtel Live: Local search will be integrated in the Airtel service menu, under the Airtel Live brand.

Local Search Mobile Tie Ups A Trend thats catching on?

Just recently we had blogged about Onyomo’s deal with Reliance communication for the quick search service and now Asklaila has partnered Airtel. Its seems this will be an ongoing trend as many telecom guys don’t have this local search capability and there are enough players (think guruji, yulop, burrp etc) who still haven’t tied up as yet. I expect more local search announcements of tie ups with telecom players in the days ahead. Also its no surprise given the where mobile search market in India is headed.

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Japan’s NTT DoCoMo Enters India With 26% Stake In Tata Tele for 2.7 B $

Rajiv Dingra — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 05:08:52 +0000

We had blogged about earlier on NTT DoCoMo’s interest in buying a minority stake in Tata Tele. Now the deal has been announced and the Japan’s largest mobile operator is also the latest entrant to India by buying a 26% stake in Tata Teleservices for a whopping 2.7 billion $ or Rs 13,070 crore. This deal pegs the valuation of Tata Tele over 10 billion $. Currently the userbase of Tata Teleservices is pegged at 30 million subscribers.

This is the third deal of an international Telecom company entering India with a stake in an Indian company. Earlier UAE’s Etisalat bought 45% stake in Swan Tele for 900 million $ while 60% stake in Unitech Wireless (which had a telecom license across India) was acquired by Norway’s Telenor for 1.27 billion $.

DoCoMo is known for its VAS revenue in Japanese markets and its innovations with technology and content services when it comes to mobile. It remains to be seen whether with the advent of 3G and this acquisition there is any impact on the mobile VAS market. Keep in mind that Tata Tele is a CDMA player and CDMA players would be technologically ahead of GSM players in terms of time required to roll out 3G services as their existing network can support 3G.

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Rediff Invests In Regional Language Mobile App Firm Eterno

Rajiv Dingra — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:18:16 +0000

Rediff.com has announced an investment in a mobile firm by the name of Eterno Infotech. Eterno is founded by ex- Nokia employees, Umesh Kulkarni and Chandrashekhar Sohoni. Eterno which is a Bangalore based provides mobile applications with Indian language support on popular mobile operating systems such as Symbian, J2ME and BREW. Eterno’s suite of innovative mobile applications include IndiSMS- an application which allows users to communicate in nine different Indian languages, viz Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil.

The company also offers IndiMate, an SMS content retrieval platform, and a “Music Companion” which lets users browse music on their mobile, and download music, ringtones and MP3 songs. The company’s customers include handset manufacturers and mobile operators like Nokia, Vodafone, Airtel and Idea.

This is the third investment by rediff in recent times after tachyon tech and vakow.com. Earlier in the the Q1 result announcement Rediff CEO Ajit Balakrishnan had said that they would be looking to acquire companies. Till now though rediff has made investments for a minority stake in these startups but that doesn’t rule out a possible acquisition and integration with rediff in the future. Even in the recent Q2 earnings more investment and acquisitions were hinted at as they still have a cash kitty of over 49 million dollars. All of Rediff’s recent investments indicate a strategy of going both regional and mobile be sms or gprs. No doubt then that recently they launched MobileRediff a downloadable mobile app to access rediff.

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Mobile Payments & MCommerce - The Future Opportunities & Challenges

Rajiv Dingra — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:43:50 +0000

With the RBI guidelines coming to the fore the mobile payments market has an official go ahead from the authorities. So we thought it was a great time to speak to some of the mobile payment players and know what they feel are the challenges and opportunities of this market.

We spoke to Sanjay Swamy CEO, Mchek and Sourabh Jain CEO, ngpay to know their thought on the mobile payments and mcommerce market in India.

1. Mobile payments market - how big is it currently and how big will it be in next 3-5 years?

mChek - Mobile payments are a key enabler that will democratize payment and financial services and make them available to the masses. The mobile payments market is still at its infancy in India and our estimates are that daily transaction volumes today will be in the range of INR 5-10 Million. Even if 5% of mobile bill payment and recharge shifts onto mobile payments platform the industry can grow to 200 Million INR a day. The opportunity as we see it is much beyond mobile bill payments and can include all forms of transactions including merchant payments, utility bill payments, peer-to-peer money transfer and any other transaction scenario that the consumer faces today.

There are a few key accelerators like regulatory environment, evolution of banking services and technologies, coming together of the eco-system and pace of innovation amongst merchants to custom create services for this channel that could together take the size of the industry to more than 1000 Million INR a day.

ngpay - Mobile payments can also be termed as Mobile Commerce or mCommerce which means all commercial transactions like bill payment, shopping, mobile banking, ordering food, buying movie tickets or travel are done using the mobile device.

mCommerce or mobile payments is simply electronic commerce (eCommerce) delivered over a mobile handset in a way that is easy to access, easy to use, and secure. Qualitatively, the mobile eCommerce market will most certainly be a multi-billion dollar market. The simple fact is that eCommerce is a multi-billion dollar market in Europe and the US. The demographics in India will dwarf both those markets.

The Average Indian does not own a PC, but >270 million have mobile handsets. Moreover, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of Indian (TRAI – www.trai.gov.in), there were less than 10 million total pc internet connections in 2007 and this number is conservatively estimated at less than 15 million in 2008. By contrast, TRAI estimates that today there are over 65 million internet subscribers on the mobile. The mobile channel offers reach and convenience for reaching people and completing electronic transactions that the PC simply cannot match – today or in the near future.

When you consider the size and growth of the Indian consumer class (who will very likely be interested in consuming eCommerce) + the # mobile users vis-à-vis PC users, then you can certainly conclude that (a) eCommerce will take off in India as a multi-billion dollar market and (b) the mobile will be the logical channel for consuming it.

2. What does the mobile payment guidelines by RBI mean for technology providers like yourselves, banks, operators and users? (please be elaborate)

mChek - We believe that the RBI has balanced the need for a robust security standard while allowing enough space for service providers to innovate while ensuring that the service is accessible to all – we are pleased to see the guidelines in the market.

ngpay - The RBI guidelines are very well balanced. They ensure robust, end-to-end security while not restricting the flexibility that banks have in deploying next generation mobile services.

3. How will 3G impact mobile payments?

mChek - We strongly believe that the time for mass adoption and usage of mobile payments is already here and sms is best positioned to leverage this opportunity.

With the advent of more advanced connectivity like 3G and GPRS there is a larger window to innovate service delivery but the common denominator of any user on any phone and with any connection, being able to transact on the mobile phone is already available.

ngpay - 3G will only help. Two of the barriers to mobile services being adopted are (a) performance and (b) cheap, widely accessible data plans. Widespread 3G will address both.

4. SMS vs GPRS vs IVR based payments which is the bigger opportunity?

mChek - Encrypted SMS messages (with 128 bit end-to-end encryption) is the bigger opportunity.

ngpay - GPRS is the only viable option for true end-to-end mCommerce. From consumer point of view, GPRS is actually cheaper than using the primary alternative – SMS. A typical end-to-end transaction on Ngpay will cost <50 paise (1-2 US cents) while an end-to-end transaction via SMS will cost 3-4 rupees (10 US cents). IVR is generally considered a “self service” channel that is a substitue to a call center. It is not usually considered when talking about “eCommerce”. Even in mature IVR markets (US, Europe) the IVR provides information (account balance, flight info) and does not, in any scale, provide interactive transaction services (such as bill presentment & payment, book purchases, etc). Even airline services on the IVR usually go to a live agent from the IVR when the transaction involves viewing flight options, buying a ticket, & selecting a seat. eCommerce – and hence mCommerce- has a visual aspect to it (searching/browsing for products, viewing pictures, selecting seats, etc) that cannot be replicated on IVR.

5. Is the different handset models/OS an impediment for mobile commerce growth? IF yes then what is the solution?

mChek - Lack of standardization is an identified issue in the mobile industry and a key challenge for application development as this increases the complexity of distribution.

6. Biggest challenges and opportunities for mobile payments in the years ahead?

mChek - Education will drive adoption – and the biggest challenge is getting users to understand the power of what they can accomplish; like all new technologies, this will also have a learning curve and a technology adoption curve and it’s important to have the right combination of services for the consumer during the early days. Based on the initial responses however, we are confident of the value proposition and interest among all constituents in the eco-system – Telcos, Banks, Handset vendors, Merchants and of course consumers and expect Mobile Payments to be the next Microwave oven – once you use it, you cannot imagine life without it!

ngpay

Opportunities

Penetration – Size and growth rate of the mobile market is the key driver of the mobile services market. Current mobile penetration is large (270M+ mobile users) but even then, there is still a lot of room to grow. The mobile provides convenient, high ROI, anytime/anywhere access for businesses to reach consumers and vice versa.

Infrastructure – The capabilities of handset easily support interesting services and applications. Entry-level Mobiles today have the same power as many PCs had in the 1990’s. Also, High QOS (Quality-of-Service) data networks are in place. Almost everyone has access to data services with even the most basic handsets & mobile service plans.

Demographics and Evolving Consumer Market - The Indian consumer market - including a new young working class with disposable income - is growing very fast. People live fuller, mobile lifestyles these days. They value convenience and have a lot of things that they want to do. They are comfortable with eCommerce and willing to transact over the mobile to simplify their lives and optimize their time.

Challenges

User Psychology & Awareness of What the Mobile Channel can deliver. Users have to trust the mobile – the way that people implicitly trust eCommerce over the PC. Moreover, very few people are aware of the rich set of services that they can complete over the mobile … today. Users are constantly amazed at the User experience and services available on ngpay when they see it.

Open Access – The Internet exploded because any user could suddenly access any website in the world regardless of the PC or Service provider they used. For the mobile market to explode similar to the PC-Based Internet market, users anywhere in India should be able to access any service they desire – as long as it is legal and secure – without interference or effort.

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Funding Updates: TeleDNA & D.Light Design Raise 10 M $ & 5.5 M $

Rajiv Dingra — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:27:38 +0000

Slowdown or no Slowdown.. VC’s have money and they shall invest is the mantra as funding news continues to trickle in and there is no apparent impact as yet of the impending slowdown on the funding in the Indian space.

So two more startups have got funding lately and they are in diverse spaces like mobile vas and cleantech (which is quite a hot sector these days).

TeleDNA raises 10 million $ from Peepul Capital

TeleDNA Communications a mobile VAS technology provider has raised $10 million (Rs 50 crore) in funding from the Mauritius-based institutional investment company, Peepul Capital LLC. Tele DNA specialises in providing telecom software infrastructure required for mobile network operators and aims to expand its sales and support functions, apart from venturing into offering managed services.

Praveen Nallapothula, MD and CEO, TeleDNA said, “We will be utilising the funds to create sustained, mass market revenue generating VAS applications bundled with our VAS infrastructure products to mobile telecom company and large enterprise. We will expand our existing sales and support functions for catering to business demand and growing customer base.”

D.Light Design raises 5.5 Million $ from Nexus India Capital, DFJ and Garage Technology Ventures

D.light Design a cleantech startup based out of delhi has raised Series A financing of 5.5 million dollars led by Nexus India Capital, along with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Garage Technology Ventures, Mahindra & Mahindra, and social funds Acumen Fund and Gray Matters Capital. The same team of investors provided seed funding for D.light as well when it was founded over a year ago. D.light aims to eradicate the kerosene lantern and provide much brighter light for millions of households in the developing world through innovative solar and LED technologies. Ofcourse India is one of their target market.

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RCom Launches Quick Search Service - Powered By Onyomo

Rajiv Dingra — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 06:07:44 +0000

Reliance Communication has announced the launch of ‘Quick Search’an information search service powered by OnYoMo.com on Reliance Mobile World(R World). We at WATBlog have always felt that onyomo’s mobile search services which was earlier owap.in and is now accessible from m.onyomo.com is one of the best in local search on mobile so its no surprise to see them forging tie ups.

The ‘Quick Search’ service on RCom phones includes information on banks, ATMs, shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, cinema theaters, cultural centers, educational institutions, hospitals, blood banks, chemists, airline offices, airports, railway stations, petrol pumps, cinema theaters, movie timings and many others.

The service cost could be a dampner though as each search query would be charged at Rs 3 on all Reliance Mobile World Phones including Blackberry handsets. Now thats an obscene amount when you can do the same via gprs and access m.onyomo.com and wont be charged half as much. I dont have a reliance phone but it would be interesting to know if Rcom has blocked access to onyomo via gprs after this tie up. Also what would be interesting to know is how much is onyomo earning from the Rs 3 per search. Given the operators affinity to distributing peanuts I doubt it would be more than 10%.

Speaking of this service, Mr. Krishna Durbha, Head – VAS, Reliance Communications said, “This service has really come as a boon to millions of subscribers of Reliance Mobile. Henceforth, they won’t have to waste their precious times in referring to an outdated telephone directory or yellow pages or await an operator for the requested information. In a few seconds, ‘Quick Search’ will furnish it. It’s both time saving but cost effective. I am sure that this service will be most sought after by our customers as it makes required information readily available.”

Sure Mr.Durbha this service will be a boon though whether its more of a boon for RCom than RCom users is debatable given the cost of the service. Also time saving is a good point but cost effective? Really?

Do check out Mr.Durbha’s defense on the Operator-Content Provder revenue share numbers.

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Zapak Launches Ad Supported Mobile Gaming Brings Greystripe To India

Rajiv Dingra — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:41:34 +0000

Reliance ADAG’s Zapak.com has partnered with ad-supported mobile games distribution company Greystripe to make available Greystripe’s 900+ ad-supported mobile games and applications on zapak.mobi and zapak.com.

In effect this brings a sort of an app storefront concept just like Apple has one for their mobile users. Mobile gaming is big in India and ad supported mobile games isn’t a new concept as Hovr which earlier tied up with Indiatimes has been in India for sometime now.

In terms of market statistics India generated $80 million in total mobile gaming revenue in 2007 and the figure is forecast to reach $450 million by 2012, according to a July 2008 report by Gartner.

The issue I have with mobile games that are ad supported is that they use my gprs everytime i connect to them as they need to load new ads and that costs me. Also I believe that reduces stickiness to play these games each time as the gprs connection might be slow. Instead I would rather pay Rs.50 and download a game which i can play any number of times on my phone. Anybody who feels on the contrary?

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Rediff Launches Mobile Application ‘MobileRediff’

Rajiv Dingra — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:40:14 +0000

Its taken a long time coming.. Considering that rediff has been around since almost the birth of the internet in India and mobile users have been growing phenomenally since the last couple of years a mobile application by rediff should have been launched atleast a year ago!

But as they say better late than never and also the fact that mobile gprs numbers are still in the nascent stage. Estimates peg gprs users at 15 million.

So Rediff has finally launched its mobile client application ‘MobileRediff’. This basically is a downloadable app which allows you a rich mobile experience with the rediff web services.

This application also allows users to send and receive Hindi language email and SMS messages. Users can also access and download SMS based content services like ringtones, wallpapers, caller back tones and jokes.

MobileRediff application is compatible with all leading GPRS enabled mobile handsets and can be accessed at mobile.rediff.com. Users can also download the client directly onto their mobile devices by SMSing to 57333. Also users can logon to http://mr.rediff.com for a demo of the application and its functionality.

Do test out the app and let us know the feedback! We shall do a review soon as well.

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RockeTalk To Be Pre-Loaded On LG Handsets - Will It Have An Impact?

Rajiv Dingra — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:27:54 +0000

RockeTalk a mobile social networking application which had recently opened up to public has added a feather to its cap by tying up with LG Electronics India to bundle the RockeTalk mobile social networking application on all new LG KT610 and KF750 (Secret) mobile phone models. These bundled mobile phones shall be available with all LG retailers in India.

Thats not all going forward RockeTalk application would be preloaded on several other LG mobile handsets in India throughout 2008 and 2009. The pre loaded rockeTalk version also includes the Instant Messenger (IM) chat feature which is compatible with Yahoo, Google Talk, MSN, AIM and ICQ.

The rise of the mobile social networks

There are quite a few Mobile social networking players that are there in India now as the web players have launched their mobile versions across sms, gprs and client as well. Also international players like Qeep have entered India who boast of an already existing userbase.

Why pre-loading the app may have little impact

The pre loaded app strategy by RockeTalk though a great one doesnt necessarily mean that usage of the app would rise as just because the app is on the phone doesn’t mean users use it. Most people will agree that Users which download an app are far more likely to use the app that those who buy it with the phone. Also given the slim market share that LG has in phones currently this would be just one step for rockeTalk. I think it will take more than just this tie up to make it big in the mobile social networking scene. As the mobile social networking scene is pretty much an open space for anyone to dominate.

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Mobshare ties up with Mathrubhumi - A Perfect Mix of Content Technology & Promotion?

Rajiv Dingra — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:38:27 +0000

Mobme integrated their SMS short code platform GO with Mobshare Channels enabling easy Subscriptions via SMS. One of the first channels to launch on this plaform was that of Malayalam Newspaper Daily Mathrubhumi which due to the launch by Actor Mamooty saw over 44000 subscribers in Day 1 itself.

This shows how offline content delivered by technology players online or on mobile backed by celebrities works wonders. Sort of a formula if you ask me.

Get a traditional content partner with great offline reach + great technology/app provider (sms, gprs or online) + Get a celebrity to endorse it = Voila! You have a fantastic traction on day one and more.. Im sure this would work for any service.

Well the other Malayalam newspaper that has been aggressive both online and offline has been Malayala Manorama which has not only launched a mobile site in association with Nokia but also launched a matrimony portal sometime back. I think existing offline brands can leverage existing technology providers expertise to quickly build a base of users in digital platforms be it online or mobile or even DTH.

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Mobile VAS In India And Its Future - VAS Players & Telecom Operators Speak Out

Rajiv Dingra — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 04:08:19 +0000

WATBlog attended the Mobile VAS Roundtable on crystal ball gazing for the VAS Industry organised by IAMAI and Businessworld and came back with some interesting insights from the panel which had the following panelists.

Krishna Durbha, Head-VAS Business & Marketing Applications Solutions & Content Group, Reliance Communications

Manoj Dawane, CEO, Mauj Mobile

Abhijit Saxena, CEO, Netcore Solutions

Sanjay Swamy, CEO, mChek India Payment Systems

Jagdish Mitra, CEO, CanvasM Technologies

The panel was initiated with a discussion on..

State of telecom networks in India and when will they get better connected?

On this Manoj Dawane of Mauj telecom stated that China’s coverage is 97% and India’s telecom coverage is 60%. Front end is growing very fast as compared to backend i.e. infrastructure. But in the current scenario for customer acquisition telecom companies are sacrificing quality which is where the problem lies.

Handset pricing an impediment?

One of the panelists also noted that handset cost is significant impediment for VAS and Mcommerce. Different makes of handsets make it difficult to build a mass based application.
This point was countered by Abhijit Saxena of Netcore Solutions who felt that pricing wasn’t an impediment. He felt that application providers needed to work around it by providing basic level apps for example email 2 sms by mytoday.

What kind of services will drive the growth of VAS?

One of the panelists stated that For a large no of people cellphone is the first communication tool. Hence voice & sms is going to be the largest used services

Manoj Dawane stated that service providers need to give people services that they want. To state an example he said 50% of the people are of marriageable age which makes a great case for Shaadi.com on mobile. He said mobile will be used for entertainment when the person is idle. For example In car consumption would be entertainment oriented content.

On the other hand Abhijit Saxena felt that In the next 3-5 years 20% of the phones would be bought for capabilities beyond voice and sms. Jagdish Mitra of MCanvas felt that Convenience & Convergence will drive mobile VAS usage & platforms like DTH is just the start of convergence.

Reliance Telecom’s Krishna Durbha Defends Revenue Share

Reliance Telecom - Krishna Durba in defence of the operator bashing with regards to the poor revenue share had a very emphatic way of making his point. He said this what you expect..

“Mr.Operator
Please build the network
Please pay 1600 odd crores for the license
Please upgrade the network
Please promote VAS
Please bill the client, make the collections, have a call centre for grieviences with services and then…
And then please pay us 70% share!”

Point he made: Telecom Operators are possibly spending more money promoting VAS than any other VAS player himself!

Why is Operator share different in International markets?
Krishna answred this stating that in international markets the ARPU is high, lifecycle of a user is long due to lock in periods and churn is low. Thereby making it possible for telecom providers to have that kind of revenue share!

On Cost, Access & Success of VAS

Abhikit Saxena stated that at any point if the cost of data/access is great than the content being consumed then that content wont last which is what makes VAS suffer as data charges need to come down.

On the point of VAS success and revenues for operators Jagdish Mitra stated that VAS has succeeded as Airtel makes more money on music on mobile than HMV makes on music as a whole!

On the point of access and cost Manoj Dawane added that The VAS of today would be the service of tomorrow as VAS wont be an addon but will be ‘the service’ that telecom operators provide and will become a commodity.
What the operator needs to consider is would you charge a pizza hut revenue share if he called for a pizza from the landline? Then why charge him for a short code? if the communication tool was more expensive than the pizza would a customer order the pizza?

Post Panel Discussions: On the whole the panel had some interesting comments made. After the panel in my discussion with a few people from the telecom operators side a point was made on TRAI over-regulating the telecom space. Besides for that I spoke to Mr.Krishna Durbha of Reliance communication as well who said that cross platform promotion of reliance services has to happen sooner or later i.e. services like bigadda, zapak and even reliance money could come on to the phone as an addon service.

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Telenor Picks Up 60% In Unitech Wireless for 1.07 B $

Rajiv Dingra — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 07:42:20 +0000

It seems like Unitech wireless has been up for sale for quite sometime now and finally someone seems to have bought into the telecom firm which has a pan india telecom license and spectrum in 13 cities.

Unitech which was earlier rumoured to have sold off 26% to Telenor and then reported to have sold 49% to Telecom Italia has finally sold 60% to Telenor for $1.07 Billion!

The deal would happen in tranches with the first tranche of 20 %, Telenor expects to acquire the entire 60 per cent stake by September 2009. The deal would be funded via a rights issue of about 12 billion Norwegian Kroner (about $1.7 billion).

Unitech Wireless would pump-in $3 billion (about Rs 14,700 crore) investment over the next three years to roll-out operations. More on this here.

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September Adds 10M Mobile Subscribers While Airtel Adds Jobs On Mobile To Its Offering

Rajiv Dingra — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:22:23 +0000

So Slowdown or No Slowdown the telecom subscribers refuse to slowdown in this country. Total addition as on september as per TRAI has been 10.07 million mobile subscribers and at the current rate it wont take more than 18 months to touch the 500 million mark!

Even the subscribers are increasing the ARPU’s (Average revenues per user) is one of the lowest in the world at just Rs.300 per user. No doubt then telecom operators are thinking of innovative ways of adding to the ARPU. So Airtel one of the largest telecom operators in India which boasts of over 62 million telecom subscribers as on March 2008 have tied up with Naukri.com, Clickjobs.com, monsterindia.com and sulekha.com to power job alerts on mobiles. Just recently naukri and sulekha had tiedup with mobisoc to launch their mobile apps as well.

Airtel users need to dial *321*661# inorder to subscribe to the alerts. The alerts are charged at Re.1 per day i.e. Rs.30 a month. There is ofcourse no news on how much of this revenue would be shared with the jobsites. Though given the operators tendency to grab a lions share of the revenues Im pretty sure the revenues share for jobsites would be negligible. But even for one second if we consider that Airtel promotes this service via a multimedia campaign i.e. print, tv etc and even 1% of the subscribers subscribe over a year given the paucity of jobs in this maket that would mean a revenue of 7,00,000 subscribers X 30 rupees a month = Rs.2.4 crores a month! Now only if there was a different revenue share and jobsites would be rich!

Search Naukri jobs on Your Reliance Mobile phone.

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MapMyIndia launches iNav Mobile App, New Navigator & Sms Feature - Ties up with Motorola

Rajiv Dingra — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 05:21:40 +0000

Mapmyindia the map based navigation products company which was on a tie up spree lately and which expects to touch 1million + sales of in car navigation devices in 3 years has launched three new features.

Mapmyindia has launched:

An iNav mobile application which transmits your location to anyone so they know where you are
New next-generation in car GPS Navigators with a more comprehensive map coverage
SMS service which to get driving directions and local yellow page information

MapmyIndia iNav: This mobile application gives turn-by-turn voice navigation anywhere across India but its real use id for personal tracking i.e. if on your way back home from office you can send your location coordinates to your spouse’s mobile phone. But the key is that your spouse should also have iNav running at the same time. Also this is a permission-based service, so you can choose who you want to inform of your whereabouts, and can also choose to turn it on or off whenever you want. For iNav MapmyIndia has tied up with Wayfinder Systems.

iNav is subscription based service and its prices for iNav range from Rs 249 for a 1-month subscription, to Rs 3490 for a lifetime purchase. To me the prices seem a bit on the higher side also the fact that between two people both would need to subscribe inorder to update each other so essentially it becomes twice the cost. I haven’t used the app so am not sure how easy it is to use.

Mapmyindia is looking to promote its products via handset manufacturers, telecom operators and VAS players by tying up with them. One of the first tie ups is with Motorola’s MOTOMING A1600 in India. MOTOMING A1600 is the first mobile phone to come pre-loaded with maps from MapmyIndia.

MapmyIndia Navigator: MapmyIndia has also upgraded its incar navigator with street level detail in 202 cities and 1,30,000 towns and villages having over 4,50,000 points of interest. But the navigator is still priced at a high Rs.22,900 per piece. It has earlier tied up with car manufacturers, such as General Motors and Ford India, to make GPS navigation available with as many cars and models across India and im sure given the price it would have to take this tie up approach as retail volumes is unlikely.

MapmyIndia SMS: MapmyIndia has moved beyond gprs to the least common denominator of sms and is now providing directions via sms. A user has to send as sms ‘MMI FROM TO ’ to 56263 and they will get the distance, estimated time and step-by-step directions on their phone via sms. To find a particular business like restaurant etc one needs to send ‘MMI FIND NEAR ’ to 56263 and as sms about those places, along with address and phone number details would be sent back.

Also check out our WATShow with Rohan Verma, Director of MapmyIndia.

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Interview With Rajesh Jain on NayaNaya.mobi & Its Business Model

Rajiv Dingra — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:26:30 +0000

We reported on Nayanaya.mobi being launched today morning and there being a confusion on the business model and monetization of third party content on Nayanaya sites. So we got in touch with Mr.Rajesh Jain as promised and questioned him about the details of the Nayanaya launch.

Here is the interview

1) What is the objective/business case behind launching nayanaya breaking new mobile sites when you already have mytoday?

The business case is to fulfill the need for information on the move. The latest updates on the mobile every minute – using the power of RSS technology. MyToday brings a wider range of information – while NayaNaya offers the latest updates by aggregating the information from various sources.

2) What would be the monetization model for these sites?

That’s not the focus right now. It is an interesting concept, and a service I personally found very useful. I think many others will. Our goal is to popularise the mobile Internet, because once that happens all of us benefit.

3) How many gprs users are there currently in India? how many do you see using this service?

IAMAI report on MVAS – (Aug2008) - When the subs base was 286 million, 65 million were GPRS enabled, 15-16 million were activated while the actual users are sub-10 million. We hope about 10% use the service in a year.

4) How many gprs users do you expect in 3 years time?

We are expecting the traffic to Naya naya portals combined to move reach 10 million page views per day in next year — a million mobile users with 10 page views per day.

5) Are you going to launch sms alert service for these nayanaya portals as well?

We definitely see a need for sms integration – where the user gets an alert whenever a new update on the topic/phrase of his choice comes in one of the stories at NayaNaya.

6) How do the nayanaya portals complement your existing mytoday business?

We are trying to bring the latest information to mobile users – our MyToday Dailies & NayaNaya offer 2 different mechanisms for the similar kind of information. For those who wish to receive crisp/latest information on SMS – our dailies cater to this audience. While for those who are on the mobile Internet – our NayaNaya verticals offer the latest on a whole set of topics to users who have access to mobile Internet.

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3G Auction Delayed To Jan 15 - Roll Out May Take A Whole Year..

Rajiv Dingra — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:43:10 +0000

Well we had blogged about the fact that 3G auction could be delayed and delayed it is but not by much its scheduled to be two weeks later than the earlier scheduled date due to requests by operators and bankers. The premise is that most global fund start a new financial year by January and hence would be willing to invest in operators in bidding of the 3G spectrum allocation.

The timeline according to this Hindu article is as follows:

November 30th: Auction design, bid document to be prepared

December 15th: Inviting operators to bid

December 31th: Pre-qualification of bidders

January 15th: Auction to be completed

January 25th: Signing of contracts with successful bidders

January 31th: Depositing of first tranch of auction money

3G is surely seeing a lot of traction as our visit to the recently held 3G conference showed us that there are a line of telecom content providers who are currently servicing the international markets are eagerly awaiting to launch their services in India.

On talking to one of the 3G content providers at the 3G conference I was told that though the spectrum may be auctioned by December (now Jan) the actual roll out of services would take atleast a year as the operators would take time to build servicing capability.

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