BANGALORE, INDIA: As with every new industry
MVAS also has its own set of challenges.
Abhay Singhal, co-founder and head, global ad sales, mKhoj , says: "Most of them arise from the fact that it is a nascent industry and rules haven't been laid down yet."
"On the other hand", Pankaj Sethi, president- corporate services- VAS, TTSL, says: "Low awareness levels among mobile users about the kind of content available on the mobile, customization of content to many Indian languages, makes content localization a tricky task. This becomes increasingly important as we go granular and rural in our reach."
"Despite the growing popularity of mobile messaging, handsets are still not easy to use for messaging or multimedia because a majority of customers are unclear on how to download content on their handsets and use it," Sethi adds.
Shivkumar Jagannath, CTO, Verity Technology, says: "m-Commerce has a huge potential market in rural sector. But, low awareness; infrastructural constraints, security issues and high pricing hamper this growth."
A recent Gartner survey states that India has largest and fastest growing mobile subscriber base in APAC, but lacks in Internet and broadband penetration.
"India has the second largest base in mobile Internet consumption. However, only 5-10 percent of the total mobile subscribers use the Internet. Mobile provides one of the best interactive platforms and it is up to us to figure out how to make the maximum of it," Abhay Singhal added.
"In India, the ARPU is the lowest in the world, and the challenge lies in getting increasingly lower ARPU customers to lift ARPU's through VAS. Yet with increasing disposable income and a bulging middle-income segment, the uptake of M-VAS for entertainment and commerce holds great potential," Pankaj Sehti, says.
The cost conscious India subscribers are still driven by basic utility of voice instead of Bluetoth or Infra- red. Though handset prices have reduced considerably in the recent times, such that every fourth Indian pocess a mobile phone, still feature rich handsets are out of the reach of common man.
