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Follow UsBANGALORE, INDIA: For more than 25 years, Comverse has provided a wide variety of industry-leading solutions for telecom operators with subscriber base of all sizes. Comverse solutions are deployed with more than 500 telecom operators globally catering to more than 2 billion end users.
Today, Comverse has 18-20 per cent and 20-25 per cent market share globally for MMS and SMS respectively to emerge as number one player in MMS domain and number two in the SMS domain. Pushpendra Mankad, senior vice president of Comverse, Asia talks about the new VAS offerings and potential of the Indian VAS industry in an interview with CIOL.
Here are the excerpts:
Q: How do you find the Indian Mobile VAS market?
India’s mobile VAS market is projected at US$ 3 billion with revenues driven by mobile–entertainment-themed VAS, including mobile music, games, images, TV and video, accounts for 29 per cent. Mobile messaging and mobile Internet accounts for 49 per cent and 21 per cent respectively and 1 per cent revenue is generated from other value added services.
Looking at the statistics, the mobile VAS industry is certainly looking set to grow and contribute to greater revenues for the operators.
Q: What can mobile customers expect with 3G services?
With the much awaited 3G and WiMax, VAS market is expected to get mature and the ARPUs may increase tremendously. The possibility of innovative content for VAS will increase and user experience will enhance. It will really be interesting to watch the WiMax proliferation which can really change the MVAS landscape.
With 3G services ironing its way in, the VAS industry is expected to increase its share by manifolds. Some industry estimates peg the figure at US$ 6 billion by 2015. With 3G mobile services set to roll out in India, service providers would bank on the VAS segment to bring in additional revenues. Improved technology, phones with larger screen sizes and multimedia capabilities, improved GPRS networks will be key drivers of the VAS segment.
Q: How can VAS reach beyond info-entertainment and serve in increasing usage and ARPU?
Indian telecommunications industry offers one of the lowest tariffs in the world and thus the scope of innovative Value added service (VAS) is definitely enormous in a country like India. In this scenario, the main source to increase the revenue for telecom operators is VAS. India’s telecommunication market is very volatile in nature wherein Telcos have to introduce new and innovative offers very frequently.
For this, Comverse HUB Value Added Services which is a synergistic framework of value added services are customable which can support every unique offer that Telco wants to bring in the market. We have ready products for 3G which are suitable in India as they are tried and tested in other markets globally where 3G is operational.
The prospects of the mobile VAS industry would be from the entertainment services as the Indian population, seeking entertainment at their fingertips fall within the age group of 18-35 years and make 30 per cent of the total handsets the Indian market. Currently, about 44 per cent of Mobile VAS revenue in India is driven by SMS applications.
Q: What are the latest services you plan to come up with?
We will be introducing VAS offerings that are aimed to help operators reduce their capex investments. With the right combination of innovative VASs, reduced capex and the right tariff plan, these will potentially help operators to gain an edge over competition.