Enters MVAS
Abhay Singhal, co-founder and head, global ad sales, mKhoj, says, “Mobile value added services have seen an unprecedented growth in India.” Revenue from MVAS is amounted to be $348.8 million by 2009.

Indian Mobile Value Added Service (MVAS) has come a long way from its early days of P2P SMS (Person-to-Person Short Message Service). Today MVAS portfolio includes graphics/wallpapers, ringtones, caller ring back tones (CRBT), SMS contests and games.

“Globally, mobile VAS can account for 25-30 percent of the total value of what operators generate, in advanced situations. However, in India, according to the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), it is at 10 percent currently and expected to contribute 20 percent of the mobile revenues over the next three years. The VAS industry in India is estimated to be at Rs. 5000 crore and is supposed to grow to touch Rs. 8000 crore by the end of FY '08,” Pankaj Sethi says.

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Features

Revenue disparity to be sorted out by mkt forces
Revenue sharing arrangements are best worked out by market forces and is dependant on the quality of product and value of copyright

What bogs the MVAS sector?
India has the second largest base in mobile Internet consumption. However, only 5-10 percent of the total mobile subscribers use the Internet 

'Go mobile but go rural'
Indian language diversity is a huge potential market for MVAS, which has been untapped for various reasons 

The road ahead for MVAS
3G will help build Internet and broadband penetration, by providing an alternative path to the expensive, last mile fixed line connectivity 

Interviews

Market dynamics will sort out revenue disparities
Once the push towards data services happens, operators will devise better revenue share for MVAS players

TTSL set to tap m-Commerce sector
A whole new range of m-Commerce services is available on Tata Indicom and we should see these broader services with m-Commerce as a string enabler 

'Mobile ad: Nascent but happening mkt'
Mobile advertising is related and similar to online advertising, but reaches far greater number of members, who can be categorised based on various parameters

'Text is the leader, but voice is equally growing'
MVAS, with the entry of 3G, is ushering in more and more players