Per second tariff plan coming soon in India

TRAI has proposed to make it mandatory, a one pulse (charge per second instead of per minute) charging method to all operators in India. The main idea behind this is to make it beneficial for mobile users in India. It will be economical, reduces  wastage per call and provides transparency to mobile users tariff plans. At present, the minimum pulse rate of 60 seconds is experiencing quite a bit of wastage. Many times, mobile users talk just for few seconds and land up paying more due to rounding up for 60seconds plan.  Over all the Service providers will also benefit with this attractive tariff plan by gaining more subscriber base and increase in revenues by mobile users willing to talk for longer time. This is already been noticed by telecom company, Tata Docomo which has launched the one second pulse plan  3 months ago.

To actually notice if this change will make a lot of difference to consumers and other service providers, we will need to wait and watch after its implemented by all operators in India.

What do you think?

- Kavyanidhi Narayan

Mobile Marketing – Powerful promotional tool

Ever since SMS came into existence in early 2000s, mobile marketing has become know to mobile users. Today, India is one amongst the fastest growing mobile industry with over 10-12 millions subscribers being added to mobile subscriber base every month is reported by Indian service providers. The service providers are now experiencing an increasing demand for mobile marketing.

What is mobile marketing?

Mobile Marketing is any sponsored infotainment or entertainment service that the mobile subscriber receives for free and the content/service is paid by advertiser. In traditional sense, it is a method by which advertisers  promote their service/product through mobile technology, mainly through cell phones.

What are the various methods of Mobile marketing?

Advertisers reach the end-users (mobile users) through various channels based on channel availability and handset compatibility. Some of them are:

• Via SMS - Advertisment message of few characters is sent to end-user along with regular text message (Text message + ad = 160 characters)
• Via USSD - Relevant ads are broadcasted to subscribers based on their interest and location
• Via Mobile games – Promotional messages are delivered along with mobile games during mobile games download or while playing games online
• Dial through IVR – Advertisment clip is played just before mobile user browses through the voice portal for CRBT, infortainment subscriptions or content download
• Mobile web marketing – Advertisments are displayed on WAP portals in the form of web/wap banners on sites which are most popular among subscribers
• Location Based Services – Mobile user receive advrtisment clips at the right time, as per mobile user interest and based on their present location
• Via Bluetooth – Transfer advertisments between cell phones but more popular in the western world than in India

What are the benefits of Mobile marketing?

For mobile users

Many of the users think it is good to have this service specially because:

• Phone calls/ games are sponsored by advertisers
• Many a times ads are informative
• Easy and free method of receiving relevant information

For Promoters

• Good source of revenue generation for advertisers and service providers
• Easy method for promoters to reach their potential customers

What is its potential in India?

Popularity of Mobile marketing in India is growing every day. India having over 400 million mobile subscribers, seems to be having good potential provided the ads are delivered for free, say industry experts. Based on reports and analysis, it is observed that there are more takers if the ads are free and very few are interested in paid services. So for promoters, a good business model is in which they do not charge their viewers for ads. Look at what others in this Industry have to say:

http://www.telenity.com/telescope/09-01/lbs-based-mobile-marketing.php

Many companies such as OnMobile, Telenity,Velti , Activemedia technologies (bought by 2ergo), ACL wireless etc are focusing in this space. What do you think is the potential of mobile marketing in India?. Do you think there is agood chance for it to grow?

- Kavyanidhi Narayan

Mobile and Internet gaming: Women gamers on a rise

Industry experts say, gaming is no more just boys passion but more and more women are getting attracted to playing mobile games and Internet games. Currently number of men far outcome women in playing games in India, but its expected that women gamers is on the rise. In India currently 20% of the gamers are women, where are in US its 40% (Source: Business standard). But its a matter of time that Indian women will catch up with US women gamers. As per Vital Analytics  (India telecom market research firm in mobile space) – Feb/March 2009 report, 105millions urban mobile users play mobile games on their phone, out of which 30 million play almost daily!

Gaming developers and companies are also taking lot of interest in implementing new games specially designed based on women’s choice. For example: Zapak has come up with a portal exclusive for women called zapakgirls.com. Exclusive women games are make over, cooking, fashion, dress up, celebrity and doll games. Some gaming companies are suprised to see that women are also getting attracted to games related to cricket.

Based on a report of game downloads, it has been observed that women usually take up games which is easy to understand and requires minimal instructions. Also by reducing the prices of the games should get more women gamers try out new ones.

So lets wait to see what the ratio of gamers will be in near future and how fast women will catch up with men in playing mobile, PC and Internet games.

- Kavyanidhi Narayan

Rural strategy: To increase mobile subscriber base in India

Cellular operators, mobile VAS service providers, mobile phone manufacturers in India have started exploring more on the rural market in order to increase their revenues.  What they have released is that rural strategy is key to business success right now, given that urban market has reached almost the saturation level.

Telecom companies are making conscious effort to come up with new products and services to attract the rural mobile users, specially by coming with beneficial and educational programs for farmers on agricultural information. Teaching them to use cell phones, sending SMS and attracting them to subscribe to services which will be benefical for their crop growth. This is achieved by providing information such as best price rates to set, weather updates, fertilizers to use, right season to grow crops etc. Telcos have been observing recently that they have started getting more than half of their monthly increase in mobile subscriber base from rural and semi-urban parts of India.  Vodafone, Reliance communication, Idea cellular has seen 50% of their new subscribers are rural areas  (Percentage – Source Business standard)

This potential to which telecom companies thought about 3 yrs ago is paying off now. Nokia the leading mobile phone manufacturing company with its low priced mobile phones is also experincing increase in handset sales, specially by rural users.

Industry experts say, even thought immediate benefits are low, rural markets are profitable in the long run.

- Kavyanidhi Narayan

NFC reader on your mobile phone will change lifes in Urban India

What is NFC?

Near Field Communication (NFC) a interesting technology which enables mobile users to just wave their mobile phone in front of the system which is NFC compliant in order to be able to use various services such as movie ticket booking, train and bus ticketing booking, using ATMs, locate directions, make payments will make life easier for mobile users very soon. NFC provides easy and secure communication between mobile phones and electronic devices. The requirement is that the two devices talking to each other should both be NFC enabled and placed atleast 4 inches close to each other. Working at a speed of 424kbits/sec makes the data transfer quick and since the devices need to be very close to each other make it a secure transaction. In accessing many information, password and authentication feature is also available.

Exchange of information between two NFC handsets (Source - Google images)

What are the services supported?

Some of the useful services allowed by NFC are :

• Travelling – Purchase tickets on the fly
• Shopping – Pay at retail outlets, malls, parking lots etc
• Banking – Secure, fast and safe payment transactions
• Restaurants – Pay for your food ordered without requiring to carry your credit card
• Organizations – Locate offices, synchronise calender events, access online digital content and take print outs

Due to the various service offerings, specially the ones required for daily activities such as  mcommerce and directions, makes life of mobile users simple.

With recent agreement among phone manufacturers, the arrival of NFC handsets is going to be easier and faster.

References

http://www.techtree.com/India/News/Use_Your_Mobile_Phone_As_Credit_Card/551-103829-547.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9672413-1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_Field_Communication

-Kavyanidhi Narayan

Status of 3G in India – Latest update/news

There is Good news for the telecommunication industry as defense ministry has agreed to release 45Mhz of bandwidth for mobile communication. At present 25MHZ of this bandwidth is allotted for 3G services and remaining 20Mhz for 2G services. The spectrum is expected to be released in installments with 10MHZ being release immediately for 3G and 5MHz for 2G services. India’s largest telecom service provider Bharti Airtel service 100 millions of its subscribers on 9Mhz spectrum. The release of this 10MHz spectrum is expected to help most circles, approximately 12 telcos to offer 3G services. Therefore, release of frequency bandwidth for mobile communcations has helped solve the problem for many telcos as it eliminates network congestion. Telcos operating in Indian cities – Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and states such as Karnataka, Andrapradesh and Tamil nadu are expected to benefit the most.

There are ~404million subscribers in India today. Gartner(leading market research firm) predicts a 90% growth in mobile users (771 million) in India by 2013.

Looks like with the release of more frequency for 3G services will attract more mobile users in India.

(Source – Numbers from Business Standard, 19th June 09).

- Kavyanidhi Narayan

Internet Search Engines

When we talk about search engines, it is mainly Google which crosses people’s mind. Other search engines such as Yahoo search, Live search is next in line. Beauty of Google search is that it gives as accurate results as possible and search is available in 45 international languages and 9 Indian languages. MSN search, Wiki seek (founded only),Blackle, Guruji.com, Asklaila etc are also well known. MSN search provides wide range of information, Wiki seek was for indexed wikipedia pages and pages that were linked to from Wikipedia articles. Blackle powered by google custom search displays search results on black background in order to save energy , Guruji and Asklaila is for the Indian consumers and gives results for Indian local information. Some of the recently launched ones are Bing (Microsoft), Wolfram Alpha, Cuil, Google Squared. Let us take a look at some details of these newly launched search engine:

Recently launched Internet Search engines

Search engine home page of some popular ones:
 
Blackle – http://www.blackle.com/
Guruji.com – http://www.guruji.com/
Ask Laila – http://www.asklaila.com/
MSN search – http://in.msn.com/
Google search  – http://www.google.com
Yahoo Search – http://search.yahoo.com/
Live Search  – http://home.live.com/

Do you use any other Internet search engines to retrive information? Do share your comments.

- Kavyanidhi Narayan

Mobile 2.0 – Instant messaging, Mobile Blogging, Social networking

Mobile 2.0 is the ability of mobile users to be able to socially network  with people by sending messages, sharing files, images and pictures, creating user generated content and interacting with each other though social networking sites. Mobile 2.0 is a combination of social networking and mobility to provide personal, localized, always in touch for mobile users. The main elements of Mobile 2.0 are services such as Instant messaging , through social networking platforms and Mobile blogging.

Instant messaging

It is a form of sending text messages between two or more people. Online messages can be sent instantly, if user on the other end is signed in or send offline messages which will be delivered when the receiver (mobile user on receiving end) is online. Along with messages, video, pictures, images can also be sent based on platform capabilities. You can also add groups, create private and public group topic and discuss on that topic. MSN, Yahoo messager, Gtalk , ACL wireless etc and many inbuild messanger (client) are available on the mobile phones today.

Social networking platforms

Facebook, orkut, Twitter etc are some sites which have become very popular among the mobile users today. It has extensive features which has contributed in converging the world and bringing people closer. Possibility of uploading pictures, sending messages, commenting on pictures, adding new friends, emailing, searching new friends from platform database etc has attracted incredible number of users.

Mobile blogging

It is also called as Moblogging. A method of publishing write-ups/content/article on to web from bloggers mobile phone/device. This is very useful specially to frequent travellers and provides flexibility to bloggers by eliminating the need to access Internet through PC. Advantage is that bloggers can post their write-ups from anywhere, anytime provided they have GPRS connectivity (Mobile Internet access) with WAP enabled device. Some bloggers provide information to  information seekers, while some like to keep it as personal dairy and share it with friends and family.

Do you agree that mobile technology is adding lot of value to mobile users and helping us keep in touch with family and friends today? What is your experience on Mobile 2.0?

- Kavyanidhi Narayan

Operator in India focus on promoting VAS through Advertisment

Operators in India are taking various steps to promote VAS. Airtel’s new advertisment on VAS applications with actors like Vidya and Madhavan, Vodafones innovative cartoon characters (ZooZoos), popular crickerter Dhoni promoting Aircel’s VAS  and Virgin mobile’s music download is catching peoples eye. Especially, Vodafone’s creative ads on VAS such as background music, ring back tone, Voice SMS, exam results,call divert, email, group SMS, recharge online, fashion tips, dating tips, set busy tone etc. with ZooZoos as the featured character is at least attracting many mobile users watch the ad and increase Vodafone’s brandname. Many are also exploring the services therefore adding to Vodafone’s VAS revenues.

Needless to say, VAS offerings provide operators  with good source of revenues. Some of the non-sms services such as music, caller ring back tones and wallpaper have become very popular among the mobile users today. Bharti Airtel, the leading telco in India, have managed to touch subscribe base of 100million in just 3 years and have claimed to be getting 10% of their revenues from VAS. There seems to be great potential for non-sms services as well. Airtel is targeting another 100 million subscribers, with VAS playing a significant role. Even for Vodafone 10% of their revenues is from VAS, more than half of it is from non-sms services.

3G can play a big role in terms of increasing VAS revenues for telcos and service providers. With higher speed and faster download contents such as Videos, images, mobile games , mCommerce can take of smoothly. As reported by media, inter-ministerial disagreements and election work in between, there has been 6 months delay in 3G auctioning already. If these issues are taken into consideraton soon, VAS is expected to contribute to significant growth for telcos and service/content providers.

-Kavyanidhi Narayan

Mobile subscriber base in India

Mobile subcriber base in India is growing at a rapid pace. It accounts to just over 400 million in May 2009.  Indian mobile operators (GSM only – excluding Reliance telecom) added a record 8.97 million GSM customers in April 2009. Comparatively less than those added in March 2009  (11.2 million). India stands second in the world in terms of mobile subscriber base and it rose by 50 %, or more than 130 million, to 392 million (GSM, CDMA) in the 12 months ended March (Source TRAI 2009 march report). China leads the race with over 600 million subcribers.

Operators and service providers are each day coming up with new services, lesser tarrifs rates, implementing techniques to improve network security, launch of 3G is providing higher data transfer rate and invention of new phones more frequently is driving people towards purchasing cell phones and subscribing to mobile phones services. In India, where mobile subscribers far exceed fixed line subscribers (~ 40million) because of better mobile infrastructure in comparison to fixed line infrastructure has use of mobile phones more appealing today.

Let us wait and see what will be the subscriber base tou Let us wait to see what will the mobile subcriber base reach up to, by end of 2009. What are your predictions?