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'Text is the leader, but voice is equally growing'
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BANGALORE, INDIA: MVAS, with the entry of 3G, is ushering in more and more players. Even small players are proving their mettle and are giving a run for the bigger players for their slots. Abhijit Saxena. CEO, Netcore, shares his thoughts with CIOL, in an interview.
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Excerpts:
CIOL: How has VAS market evolved for MyToday?
Abhijit Saxena:The biggest asset we have is that we have a subscriber base of our own. The kind of service we offer helps in creating habit in consumption as our recent Nielsen study (covering 5,000 users) had shown.
The study says 76 percent of our subscribers read every message, 84 percent say they receive the information first from MyToday before any other medium and 98 percent say they will continue with the service and recommend it to others.
After the success of creating this service we are confident that we will be able to now offer more value added services to our captive audiences.
CIOL: Your take on the MVAS cost front, which is expensive in terms of Indian market scenario?
AS: Cost is something, which has to be worked upon. Just like mobile industry grew through rationalisation of pricing in the market. Similarly, MVAS industry growth is also dependent on rationalisation of costs, pricing and revenue share in the value chain.
CIOL: What kind of change do you foresee in the MVAS value chain?
AS: We feel that content players will get a better share in the coming time. If the same does not happen, then MVAS runs the risk of taking a highly prolonged route in creating valuable products for consumers.
CIOL: What are the services that MyToday offers?
AS: MyToday Network offers services across SMS, WAP and a newly introduced voice platform.
A free, direct-to-consumer subscription service, MyToday Dailies offer subscribers content across 50 channels through SMS and voice platforms. Live channels include news, cricket, sensex, biz and tech. The range of entertainment channels include jokes, prem, love, bollywood, hindimovies, engmovies, regional and astrology.
Subscribers can also receive tips on topics as diverse as word, health, quiz, beautycare, career, quotes, home and manager.
MyToday.mobi is the most comprehensive mobile Internet portal you are likely to find. It has ABC (Astrology, Bollywood, Cricket) and much more. News, finance, a library of hundreds of books for children and adults, recipes, city guides and weather are only a part of our offerings.
We have handpicked information to meet customers’ needs and tailored the presentation to mobile. In addition, we even provide access to websites on mobiles.
MyToday offers comprehensive mobile marketing solutions to advertisers like brand/awareness campaigns, customer engagement and customer acquisition/lead generation, making it a highly participative media vehicle, compared to conventional media, which is suitable only for solicitation.
MyToday offers comprehensive mobile marketing solutions to advertisers like brand/awareness campaigns, customer engagement and customer acquisition/lead generation, making it a highly participative media vehicle, compared to conventional media, which is suitable only for solicitation.
CIOL: Whom are you catering to? How large is MyToday's subscriber base?
AS: MyToday, initiated less than two years back, has a formidable subscriber base of close to four million unique users spread across all telecom operators, with penetration in urban, as well as tier-1 and tier-2 centres.
Nielsen Research Figures
Average Age is 25 years
69 percent are from nuclear families
64 percent are graduates or above
30 percent use GPRS regularly & total of 59 percent have access to GPRS
69 percent are from nuclear families
64 percent are graduates or above
30 percent use GPRS regularly & total of 59 percent have access to GPRS
EC Classification In Metros and All India
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Metros
53% SEC A
31% SEC B
13% SEC C
2% SEC D
1% SEC E
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All India
44% SEC A
35% SEC B
15% SEC C
4% SEC D
2% SEC E
44% SEC A
35% SEC B
15% SEC C
4% SEC D
2% SEC E
Age Classification
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Male Female Breakup
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CIOL: Which are the regional services that you offer currently?
AS: We have regional language services in four languages other than English.
They are:
HINEWS
KNNEWS
MLNEWS
TANEWS
TELNEWS
HIMOVIES
KNMOVIES
MLMOVIES
TA MOVIES
TELMOVIES
TAMOVNEWS
MLMOVNEWS
KAMOVNEWS
TKMOVNEWS
CIOL: What were the constraints you faced and what will be the challenges in the road ahead?
AS: The biggest challenge we faced was to break away from the norm of offering only paid services by operators. There were initial resistance, but gradually the operators are realising that through our service, we have created two categories.
One is the premium service, which subscribers pay for and which attracts a small percentage of the total base. While, the other is a free service that attract masses, who are monetised through various other models that subscriber-pay.
CIOL: How is MyToday different from others?
AS: MyToday Dailies is India’s only medium-on-mobile. It operates on a unique opt-in model, which means that its subscriber base, of around four million unique users, comprises wholly of those people, who have chosen to receive messages from MyToday and continue to do so.
MyToday is the largest SMS provider in India, accounting for 4 percent of the total SMS traffic. We deliver over 350 million SMS each month for 11+ million subscriptions across 50 channels of consumer interest.
The only mass scale permission based platform on mobile, it generates response for advertisers on the same platform it delivers content.
CIOL: Which latest technology do you plan to incorporate in future?
AS: We have incorporated voice into our product offering recently. Advertisers can now reach out to our subscribers using this medium. Voice complements our SMS, WAP platforms and allows for enhanced engagement with audiences.
CIOL: Voice or text, which one would be the next phase in MVAS?
AS: Text is the leader and will remain so for some more time. Voice is an upcoming platform and will certainly grow.