Mobile Internet has high potential in India

MUMBAI, INDIA: Nowadays, the collaboration of Internet and mobile devices is creating new business models and opportunities for the media publishers and advertisers globally.

While addressing the MIA 2009 conference on mobile Internet opportunity in India, July Systems’ CEO and co-founder Rajesh Reddy said we are at the brink of the revolution of mobile Internet.

“We are at the brink of another revolution, the revolution of mobile Internet. According to Trait's March 2009 report, there are about 117.82 million mobile Internet users out of 415 million mobile users in India, and in contrast, there are only 6.4 million broadband PC Internet connections,” he said.

For the mass-media and advertisers, the mobile medium provides very rich visuals and content supported by most devices, according to Reddy. People use mobile Internet for various mobile services such as finance, news, sports and entertainment and the Indian market is closely following the US market, he added.

Though the mobile medium is reducing the other medium’s consumption, the coming of 3G services in India will have a major impact on devices and mobile Internet services and will drive users to mobile Internet, Reddy pointed out.

However, about the challenges of 3G in the country, Reddy said that unless multilingual content needs are highly addressed, it could hinder mobile Internet from becoming mass medium in India.

The mobile Internet ecosystem is formed of broadcasters/publishers or advertisers, mobile device manufacturers, operators or carriers and platforms or technologies. However, in the US, there’s a shift from on-deck to off-deck services, which suggested that content is not dependent on operator or carriers.

Interestingly, July Systems’ executive vice president – Sales and Business Development Kelvin Rowlette called the mobile Internet as another “gold rush” in the US as there are about 25.1 million users in States and is further expected to grow.

A comScore & Park Associates survey stated that in the US, there will be about 60 million mobile Internet users by 2009 and the it will reach 140 million by 2013. However, Rowlette pointed out that this number could further rise if mobile operators start to offer cheaper data plans, affordable smart devices and applications, which can push the mobile Internet.

Moreover, citing the Cisco Virtual Network Index – 2008 report, Rowlette said the global mobile data traffic will get annually doubled by 2013 as a single high-end mobile device creates as much traffic as 30 basic service devices.

“India has huge number of mobile users and the number is expanding constantly, so the country has ample opportunities and potential in mobile Internet. And also, the cost for creating content and delivery is very low compared to other media,” Rowlette concluded.