The current mobile marketing business in India is worth around Rs 40 crore

Mobile marketing is growing fast- Active Media Technology

-Raj Singh, co-founder and executive director, Active Media Technology

Nilabh Jha

Monday, August 20, 2007

CIOL: What are your focus areas in mobile marketing?
Raj Singh: We have link with all operators, both GSM and CDMA. So, the consumer who sends a text message or goes to a Web page or Web phone can access our services.

Raj Singh, co-founder and executive director, Active Media Technology With this, we go to media companies and top brands, and build campaign. We have done a lot of SMS campaigns, regeneration, contest, brand promotions, and others. We have also done interactive campaigns for media companies, and TV channels like Aaj Tak, Janmat, and Ten Sports. Another area of our focus is 'Mobile Coupon', where we distribute coupons and vouchers through mobile. Here our product RAPOS (redemption at point of sale) comes into play. It helps in distributing the coupons through phones.

We can send the coupons as bar codes and then scan it at the point of redemption to execute the transaction. The other way is to send it through SMS. In this system, we send message containing coupon number, which could be punched into a PC and validated. The coupons could be a ticket or a discount coupon, which a retailer would like to give to its customer. For Spice Telecom in Chandigarh, we distributed entry passes for a show, using RAPOS technology.

CIOL: What is the market size, growth etc for mobile marketing business in India?
RS: No published data on the market size is available. But, I believe the current mobile marketing business in India is around Rs. 40 crore. Though, it's nowhere near the Internet market, it' is a growing market. The global market size is approximately $800 mn, of which major revenues are coming from Japan. In the next four years that number is likely to go up to $10 bn. Even half of that target is achieved, most people will be happy. We expect a similar trend in India as well, but being mobile centric, rather than Internet centric, India can expect faster growth.

CIOL: What is your expansion strategy?

So, we are focusing on these areas as well. With our mobile marketing expertise, we are involved in content services. Another area is mobile coupons and mobile vouchers. We have already started this starting with Hutch in Mumbai. With the mobile user base touching 150 mn, the cell phone has emerged as a great device to deliver discount vouchers and coupons.

CIOL: What are your investment plans?

RS: So far, we have not raised any kind of external funding. As of now, we are evaluating our strategic options in front of us, and quite seriously evaluating to raise some kind of funding in the next six to nine months. We are looking at some kind of equity based investment or PE investment. We are looking at an investment of $2 mn.RS: Currently, we are focusing on a couple of areas. Our biggest area is mobile marketing and we are studying how brands utilize mobile as a mean to connect with customers. Also, we are working with mobile operators to create content services. Our fundamental business model is brand subsidization, and our key part of the business model is that revenue is generated from the third party i.e. brands, who ride on the mobile media to achieve some kind marketing objectives. That's one part, which is very much an emerging area. There aren't a lot of mobile media and mobile advertising applications.

©Source: Voice&Data