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Thursday, February 1, 2007
Bhaskar Hazarika
NEW DELHI: Mobile content in regional or vernacular is likely to drive the subscriber numbers in the rural market.
With the value-added services being offered in the rural areas, the operators are significantly going to increase the consumer numbers.
According to reports, on an average 20 SMSs are being sent across by a single subscriber in the B and C cities.
Speaking about the future of the rural VAS market, Rajiv Hiranandani, country head, Mobile2win, said that 60 per cent of the rediffmail subscribers are from the smaller towns.
“In China 33 per cent of the revenues in the VAS comes from the rural market,” he said.
Hiranandani said that the operator should customize the content for better response from the rural market.
Apart from English, mobile content is available in South Indian languages. Hiranandani said that Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and other major languages are likely to pick up soon.
“The operators should come up with special downloads during festivals, which could prove to be huge revenue generation for operators. Currently downloads in South Indian languages are picking up well and it is likely that if operators are able to offer content to the subscribers, downloads in other languages will pick up shortly,” he added.
According to records, there were 48,000 downloads in Punjab on a single day of ‘Lohri’. Content will proliferate on the mobile network. Applications in these markets will incorporate the facilitation of rural commerce unlike the entertainment-driven content popular in the urban sectors.
“Expansion of mobile subscriber's base beyond cities presents a great opportunity to the mobile VAS industry to grow. However, the challenge is the role of entertainment in adoption, pricing, packaging and local content,” Hiranandani said.
According to Prashant Singhal, Telecom Industry Practice Leader, Ernst & Young, India's revenues from telecom services will reach close to USD 35 billion by 2010. He added that low-complexity, entertainment-driven content services like ring tones, music downloads might also drive demand in rural India, which could prove to be a bonus for operators.
© CyberMedia News
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