Feature Phone Dominates India Device Market- Business Indicator for Application Developers

Post IDC released report about India device shipment market size in 2013, all focused on phenomenal growth in Smartphone segment. The attention towards Smartphone and its projected growth forecast took the shine out of Feature phone market. Everyone seems excited about CY13 Smartphone shipment of 44 million out of total shipment of 256 million. Smartphone share still command less than 20% of the total device shipment. Did one observe that overall device shipment market size experienced YoY growth of 17.8%. The feature phone shipment experienced YoY growth of around 5%.

The underline YoY volume growth in Feature phone, Smartphone and overall are 10.5 Mn, 27.8Mn and 39Mn respectively. It clearly depicts that feature phone volume is not falling but growing at slower pace. The analyst forecast of trend diversion towards Smartphone is not supported w.r.t released numbers by IDC.

It also raises question marks about the potentials of Application Developer focusing totally on Smartphone instead of Smart Delivery. Generally users change their devices in 14-16 months and prefer to opt for low to medium priced and graded devices which generally works fine across different wireless standards. It is also important to understand that support of wireless network is not important but the underline cost in order to access underline wireless network is important.

The rush by the Application Developer to reach out to Indian Smartphone user and projecting huge revenue potential may bring same level of shock waves the way VAS Industry received it. I still remember that in 2007-2008, All pundits were talking about Mobile Operator attached VAS revenue growth and unbelievable revenue projection. All went awfully wrong but Pundits were fast enough to put the blame on regulatory environment. It is also important for Pundits to take regulatory risk as one of the KPI’s before projecting about future.

It’s not too late where Application Developer should be focusing on Feature phones and Developers having Solutions or Products or Applications will have higher probability of Success compared to Applications Developer focusing on Smartphone. I have the prerequisite data which is nothing but sparkling facts. Rushing in race is not going to make the Applications successful but carefully articulated Applications with backward compatibility support of feature phone is going to crack the market and will carry the potential of market leader.

Voice Against Instant Messaging Apps Rising

It’s amazing to observe how the business environment takes turn within weeks or days or hours. The latest as per the report published in The Hindu that Bharti Airtel CEO advocated for regulating Instant messaging applications. I have been predicting for the last many months through my blogs that non regulatory Applications segment are taking undue advantage and it would be sooner than later that regulators are going to look into it to generate additional revenue and also brought many application provider under the regulatory environment of land of law.

Interestingly recent high voltage acquisition and venture fund investment into Application segment raise many eyebrows. The latest comment from Bharti Airtel CEO clearly indicates Service Providers worry around revenue leakage due to non regulatory domain, impact on government revenue share and more importantly security gaps created indirectly.

I will not be surprised in case of revival of Application consultation paper by TRAI which was under wrap for the last many months. At the same time, lawful agencies may also slap notices to unnamed messaging applications provider for the violation of Indian land of law in terms of offering services as well as privacy/security. I strongly believe that Bharti Airtel CEO Comment in The Hindu news paper will be used as threshold by Service Providers to launch an effort to bring Instant messaging companies on terms where they can earn more from them including revenue share.

Blackberry Played Differentiation Card During MWC –Threat For Competing Messaging Apps

The WhatsApp acquisition by FB created buzz among messaging application marketplace. Deal highlighted the hidden revenue spinner among investors. The major takeaway of deal was the potential threats of revenue dry down for Service Provider from SMS service as well as government losing millions of $ under differ multiple revenue sharing agreement with operator. Deal brought back the focus on Blackberry BBM service and their announcement of being compatible with Nokia X product.

BBM CEO wasted no time in hitting the right chord within its strong hold Enterprise and Government sector. The BBM services during MWC were projected as secure communications service focused towards compartmentalisation of consumer and prosumer segmentation. The classic presentation of work and home segregation again brought up the strong proposition of BYMS ( Bring your messaging service) within work environment which fulfill the law of land.

The continuous support of Blackberry and its strong Technological platform clearly demarked Blackberry from rival messaging services where it’s next to impossible to claim that its fully compliant to regulatory environment whereas Blackberry is claiming the same.

Most of the messaging apps are focusing in cross selling one or another services or products to applications user and collecting the contextual details of the user. On a contrary BBM is projecting that their service is nothing but work space with the flexibility to use it in the personal space. As against the rival Blackberry is focusing in acquiring high worth prosumer and creating an environment of recurring revenue stream which would definitely fetch higher subscription fee. It is widely expected that Blackberry is going to put the subscription fee per month which will also carry premium features to its prosumer user base through Enterprise customer base. It is going to create the messaging service supported with inapp purchase which is widely popular in gaming industry.

The inclusion of BBM with Nokia X series is going to give BBM wider reach coupled with other agreement with global Device OEM’s. In my point of view that in near future Blackberry CEO strategic maneuver in the Enterprise segment is going to force Samsung to also support BBM in their device along with their home grown chat service.

In my point of view, the dynamic nature of industry will sooner than later embrace BBM as secure communication medium in order to reduce the potential electronic and digital security threat. The recent comments came from regulators to government that the next wave of ICT regulation would be focused in secure communications. As, I have been writing in my blog that Investment in Blackberry may turn out to be profit trailer machine.

IBM And AT&T Collaboration On Security – Learning For Indian Service Providers

Technology giant IBM and wireless communication trend setter AT&T announced strategic collaboration in Security domain which covers single point of network security and subsequent threat management. Being the number one wireless operator and experiencing the explosive data growth, the collaboration of AT&T offer single take away that there are security threats and hackers’ dynamics are changing from WEB to WAP. The adoption and empowerment of BYOD (Bring your Own Devices) and Bring Your Own Network (BYON) offer next wave of user adoption and subsequent monetization. The potential Managed security service offering which will have infrastructure and tools to mitigate network, applications, environment initiated threat towards consumer and prosumer information. The collaboration would enable customers to buy license and not to worry about security but to get the clean connectivity across geographies against possible connectivity medium.

Indian Service Providers must catch the hidden potential around managed security segment targeting especially to millions of SMB’s and SME’s. It would help them to increase their consumer retention as well as ARPU. Tata Communications launched Managed Security Services in 2008-2009 and was quite successful in convincing Indian Customer base including Service Providers. The problem with Indian Consumer and Prosumers base is that they are negligent about the importance of security and raises little to no noise in case of any information loss due to hacking or other security related lapses.

The collaboration can be considered as confirmed business case and should be replicated to garner best business opportunity whereas consumer and prosumer would get benefited in a cascaded manner. The proposed collaboration is nothing but the recognition to security issues more openly by Mobile operators and also their effort to protect their user base.

Is Indian Regulator Planning License Fee Imposition On Messaging Apps – Blessing For Indian Mobile Operators

The Typical nature of Indian Telecom sector is to snap any opportunity to generate revenue for government. The recent deal of Facebook and WhatsApp must have attracted government eye. In the past few months many regulatory bodies of India is raising their concern regarding huge growth attached with free voice and messaging applications. Many article came in print media that security agencies are contemplating actions against leading messaging applications due to non compliance on security side.

I am pretty sure that the recent deal must have given Indian regulatory enough insight to monetize Over the Top Application as revenue spinner for the government. I would not be surprised that government would start creating an environment before proposing license fee or usage fee or imposing stringent regulation to make sure that the messaging apps industry in one or another form pays bulk of their generated revenue to government.

It is also logical that if Indian Mobile operators are going for auction in order to protect their user base as well as forced to buy in BWA license in order to offer data centric services then, what is the reason that messaging applications companies are not charged per user. Any move by government would be blessing in disguise for Mobile Operators and it would bring some of the lost revenue back to Mobile operator. One must not be surprised if Mobile operators changed their stance and start asking for monthly enablement charges from user or companies offering such services using Mobile operators network.

In any of the circumstances, Mobile operators are going to gain. Recently, many Mobile Operators and Europe and other parts of world started offering messaging services and India may follow the same path.

Adoption Pattern Analytics Are Driving Few Application Companies Valuation

As all must be aware that WhatsApp or any other messaging Apps are not free or nominal fee post one year should not be considered as low cost but being a user, you are generating Hundreds of $ for messaging and other apps. All users know that it’s mandatory for user to provide their information before getting the full fledged Applications or messaging applications.

Indian users generally opt for such services or product which is free with a perception that “if I don’t like then will delete the specific Application”. These Applications developers are in the business of collecting contextual data and offer additional services or do collaboration with other companies to cash down the collected contextual data.

More interesting, many of such companies don’t have any understanding about Indian user ecosystem but interested in just collecting data and to some extent violating Indian regulation. It is correct that such Applications companies may get high valuation because of user information instead of Application features. Recent rush of e-Retailer and brands looking for targeting marketing added fuel.

One should not be surprised that by July 2014, many Application providers offering free services and in the business of collecting contextual information would look for shelter. Many investors would also be facing risk of losing their investment.

Why Whatsapp And Facebook Investor Would Lose In Long Run

In next series of giving detailed insight about the gaps of FB-WhatsApp deal which in one or another way is going to hurt FB investor dearly and WhatsApp investors heavily. I was surprised to see deal news splashed all over internet. Somebody termed it Facebook move to protect its own turf and I was among those whereas some termed it as expensive one. It also started new discussion war among Analyst about the potential valuation of existing messaging Apps by keeping WhatsApp deal as threshold. In my point of view, both WhatsApp and FB investor is going to lose.

The purpose of FB was to acquire mobile centric user with highest probability of repeat users. Even though both the organizations are claiming that they won’t be supporting Ad filled revenue opportunities but do readers knows that

In just released Q4, 2013, Facebook generated $2.59Bn revenue and Ad revenue was $2.34 that translates in 90.34% revenue coming from Advertisement and mere $241 million revenue coming from other sources.

At the deal announcement time, Facebook promised WhatsApp $4 bn Cash, $12 Bn in Stocks and $ 3 Bn in restricted stock option. This will dilute FB number of total shares by 8.66%. At the same time, FB is going to offer 222 million shares to WhatsApp owners. It is going to put pressure on FB to sustain the same growth rate of 50% and 30% in revenue and net profit respectively.

It is also interesting that the FB Earning per share ratio of 111.3 at the time of deal which indicates the inflated valuation on the back of exponential growth expectation due to new love of ad attached revenue. Single $ fall in FB share price is going to lower the deal price by $222 million. Currently, FB share prices at and around its lifetime high and pundits are expecting higher share price moving forward. One must be careful about uneven behavior of Internet attached business.

1. Do anyone remember once the darling of Internet MySpace.
2. What happened to AOL
3. What happened to Orkut
4. What happened to Microsoft multi Billion $ acquisition of Skype
5. What happened to Cisco multi Billion $ acquisition of WebEx

One misstep or even simple Application offering may act as havoc for both the company investor. I am expecting that Facebook cleverly attached deal through provisioning and infact invested only $4 Billion in cash and fair value of Facebook share even at flashy growth is not more than $25. It would translate the whole deal around $9 Bn plus. Its my personal assessment and opinion and would recommend investors to be in or out of the Facebook equity given their own assessment. I am expecting huge write-off by Facebook in next 2 years.

Why One Should Invest In Bharti Airtel

Bharti Airtel equity in the last one year is living in artificial fear psychosis created by pundits about the entry of Reliance Jio. Reliance Jio last year successfully managed to get the license from government and can offer voice services. It impacted all listed Telecom Operators but Bharti Airtel was caught up in cross fire. Some of the Analyst talks about Airtel mounting debt level, some talk about their concern about upfront payout to government of India for just concluded spectrum auction, some talk about their Africa business, some talk about growing competition from Idea and Vodafone. I feel that in competitive economic environment, above mentioned points would always revolve around market leader but is it fair to create an environment of negative news by continuously talking about threats. I would like to highlight the following and would appreciate reader view

1. Who is the leader in the Indian telecom sector both on revenue and subscribers
2. Who commands highest ARPU in India
3. Who is generating maximum Cashflow
4. Who is generating maximum revenue from Mobile services
5. Who would get benefitted by lowered Spectrum usages charges
6. Who owns maximum Data user
7. Who is having one of the best data ARPU
8. Who is having minimum churn rate among the Incumbent
9. Who launched 4G in multiple cities
10. Who is maintaining continuous innovation in Product positioning
11. Who cleaned up their management within Six months with all new faces and having a guts to give well established business to a person from FMCG
12. Who is aggressive in Broadband services
13. Who spent Millions of $ in acquiring Qualcomm BWA without having plans for it

I must admit that Vodafone is the only competitor generating nearly same APRU like Bharti Airtel. On Bharti Airtel Africa business, one must be rest assured that once US picks then it will have cascading positive impact on Europe and other continents including Africa. Once that happen then the currently so called African operation would generate the same kind of result the way Jaguar is generating for struggling Tata Motors.

Regarding Reliance Jio entry into voice and data segment of telecom sector would carry no to little impact. I have been hearing for the last two and half year that Reliance Jio is near to launch but they are still on the design table. In my point of view, they are minimum 4 quarter away from full launch and by that time Bharti Airtel would sweep up license area with their 4G launch. One must not ignore that Bharti is having running system in place to do soft launch to realign infrastructure to refine the service defects but that’s not the case with Reliance Jio. The nearest competitor Vodafone and Idea is entangled with Tax authorities. Any tax penalty on both the companies would change their financial dynamics.

In conclusion, potential investor must read the analyst report from all leading analyst firm and their targets for Bharti ranges from 360 to 430 INR but they criticize Bharti Airtel when its trading below INR 310.

In conclusion, any investor must do their own analysis and invest particularly in the case of Bharti Airtel if they really wanna to get rewarded.

Facebook Gulped Potential Threat Whatsapp

For the last 24 hours everyone is talking about Facebook acquisition of WhatsApp. The whopping price point raised everyone eyebrows. Everyone is talking about Facebook strategy to acquire user base and monetize through Advertisement. The interesting part of the whole acquisition is bit ignored. Facebook observed growing popularity of SnapChat in US whereas WhatsApp growing presence in emerging countries. Now a day’s most of the device manufacturer preload WhatsApp by default as it’s the expectation of mobile device buyers that WhatsApp must be there. Facebook captured market place from Orkut because of its offering of Photo sharing and snatched most of the active Orkut user base. WhatsApp story is nothing different. In last 3 years, there simplistic user interface and privacy through groups attracted active mobile user and sharing of information started happening on WhatsApp. More interestingly that the services offered to users were free from advertisements. Facebook must have seen the deflection of user interest as well as observed heavy traffic on WhatsApp. Buoyant by Dec 2013 result where Facebook successfully demonstrated impressive growth through advertisement and shifting access trend on Mobile from Web also attracted Facebook interest to captured riped fruit which can be readily used to mint advertisement money and command premium for pushing targeted advertisement. Still I would term this deal as” New Time Warner and AOL merger” and in next few years Facebook would regret for its decision to acquire potential threat.

Why International Application Providers Are Targeting Weak Regulatory Environment Of India For Investments

In recent past, most of the companies are moving from wired level access to wireless level access mechanism post explosive growth in mobility segment post phenomenal adoption of Android mobile ecosystem. Many young and experienced entrepreneurs captured the potential opportunity in the Application segment given the explosive growth in Smartphone segment as access medium. The adoption of chat services both on text and voice level started the dynamics of the mobility segment. The success of WhatsApp acted as motivational factor for new entrant into the segment. The ongoing bubble in the Application segment where everything thinks of making money by reusing contextual pattern of mobile user created competitive environment among Application developer to rush for user acquisition.

The housing bubble burst, financial crisis, manufacturing downturn in US, EU and other part of world prompted investors to look for new avenue to invest. The tough regulatory environment in China, EU and US and language barrier prompted International Application Companies to turn their focus towards India. Given the huge consumer base of more than 744 million mobile users’, growth forecast in Smartphone segments and loosely coupled regulatory environment in India offered hassel free environment to application companies to gain consumer base faster than the other geographies. Most of the application developer works on the Application UI/UX and mapping it with basic backend system with a focus to capture only the contextual pattern of the user. Given the boom in Big Data domain, Applications instead of network domain are now considered the best tool to analyze the adoption trends. The main goal of Applications developers/companies are to collect the contextual pattern and accordingly push usages behavior centric Ad or other Application push.

It is also interesting that the Applications developers from sector such as BFSI, Utilities, Infotainment, Entertainment or Social are relying completely on Advertisement revenue compared user charging model. Most of the Application providers are not being able to charge consumer base given the regulatory environment in India. Even more interesting that most of the Application developer companies are not even aware of regulatory dynamics in India and for them legal opinion is equal to regulatory opinion.

Due to the segregated regulations and absence of Application regulation created an easy path for both domestic and international Application companies to push Applications to Indian consumers. Easy acquisition of userbase enables Application companies to offer selling points to their potential investors about prospects of revenue potential to prospective investor group. Many international Application companies are even clearly violating Law of Land by not adhering to the regulation w.r.t Telecom, IT and Cyber Security Law. Some of them only hire sales representative in India to run their business without opening office in India. Due to such companies engaged in collecting contextual pattern of users as well as playing with valuation game, Indian mobile users are getting more pesky calls, SMS as well as premium service redirect attacks. The lack of awareness among Indian mobile users makes it even more difficult for mobile operators to track premium number redirect attacks and inturn losing millions of dollars in lost revenue opportunities.

It would be disastrous for both PE investors as well as such companies engaged in taking undue advantage of current environment once combination of lawful agencies of India comes out with stringent regulation for such companies to operate in India. Such companies must recognize the power of open platform but should not misuse it as it would spoil the whole ecosystem. At the same time, applications users must be vigilant to raise unlawful activities of such companies so that law abiding application companies gets their deserve right to be successful.

Why Indian Device Users Should Be Careful While Playing Around With Applications

The era of SMS is being replaced with data centric Applications. The mobile ecosystem players are now focusing on data hungry Application segment to drive revenue. Mobile Service providers are focusing on selling their data pipes and create auto cycled data revenue driven by Infotainment and Entertainment. On the other side many Applications providers from Retail, BFSI’s, FMCG’s, Education, Servicing and other sectors are offer mobile network agnostic Applications to increase awareness among their existing customer base and trying to capture additional one in order to propel growth and competitiveness.

The competitive environment among consumer and prosumer segment based Application providers offering lots of opportunities as well as concerns for the end consumers and prosumer’s. The two dominant Mobile OS ecosystem such as Android and iOS capture more than 90% of the Application system where iOS market share is only 14%. The iOS ecosystem is much closed whereas Android ecosystem is very open system and widely adopted by consumer and prosumer’s base.

The rampant push by Application providers through multiple means without taking responsibilities on themselves, they create Terms and Conditions favorable for them to bypass any legal liabilities on them.

Indian ecosystem is not having any regulation with respect to Applications and the following are the some of the focal assessment points for mobile device user before downloading or using any applications.

1. Read terms and condition carefully, if T&C force mobile device user to give consent for taking mobile user information or contact list information then donot accept. It may lead to exposing ones near and dear one information to Application providers. Please note that the retrieved contact information can then be used by Application providers to push unwarranted Applications to your contact list based people as well as increased pesky call and SMS. The current trend of most of the Application provider to collect mobile device user information along with other information sitting on one’s devices.

2. Before downloading any Application, please visit Application providers website and check their location. One must make sure that even though device owner give their consent to Application providers to take their primary information such as Mobile Numbers, Device Type, Requested Application for download but the information should reside in India. Most of the Application providers maintain their servers outside of India and incase of any hacking of their servers, device owners information would be exposed for security attack.

3. Before downloading an Application, Please make sure about the size of an application. If the size of Application is high then it would consume more RAM and subsequently impact the performance of device such as device slowdown, battery dranage etc. If mobile device owner decide on downloading an Application then they must check the RAM and ROM consumption on manage Application section. In the APP section, the actual size of Application would be visible whereas on screen pullover, the Running section would let you know the exact consumption done by Application.

4. Post downloading an Application, please check if Application is continuously running on the background or one can close it. If it is running continuously then there might be a chance that Application is reading all your activities and according pushing advertisement or other applications.

5. Always maintain SD card and download all new applications on SD card and it carry multiple benefits to device owners. Generally device user buying device with high internal memory and neglect in adding SD card. Directly downloading on device internal memory may expose all activities of mobile device user.

6. Post downloading an Application; please check if Application is not wrapped with other Applications. There are numerous Applications which carry multiple applications. Once device owner download particular application, he suddenly start experiencing appearance of additional application sitting on OS Tray.

7. If device owner is heavy user of social media site then please ensure that device owner clear browser history and cache on regular basis.

8. In today’s world every device users are using messaging Applications in one or another form. Please make sure that device owner cleans the conversation on regular basis. It mitigate the risk of exposing device owner conversation in case of malware or adware sitting on device and communicating with remote servers of hackers.

9. It’s a perception that Mobile security solution impacts the performance of the device but being a device owner; one must make a choice of being vulnerable or subscribe for good security solution from Symantec, MacAfee, Fortinet, Websence, Trendmicro and many more. The mobile security software is very effective in telling mobile device users about any unlawful activities initiated by Malware or Adware pushed by Applications. It is true that these security solution works continuous on the backend but it should be device owner choice to make a decision to secure their activities including financial, privacy, highly priced devices or saving few $ per annum to have a peace of mind.

10. With the adoption of mobile banking, commerce and heavy push by the companies involved in these sectors; it is imperative that today or tomorrow the adoption would increase. Any negligence on device owner end may cost them “robbery through mobile”. The indications are very clear that hackers are moving their focus from wired based connected devices such as PC or Laptop to wireless device centric. The lack of connected technology implemented created vulnerability for Mobile device owner. It would be great if device owner wakes up and initiate mitigate solution implementation else it would not be long before you can also be the target.

11. Never leave your Bluetooth enabled while you are on the move or in crowded place. Device owner may risk their information.

12. Never ever store your banking details in your device. In case of device loss or stealing or information redirect attack, device might lose such important information to unsocial person which inturn can be reused to create havoc.

13. Device owners aware of threats towards device through sleeper applications must create awareness to develop an environment of viral education. It would in turn make device owners more careful while downloading. The indirect impact would be on Good Applications investing millions of $ in Client server development fulfilling all prerequisite and there will be spike in those Application download.

14. Never ever register for multiple email accounts signed in along with the corporate email id. It would risk device owner information in case they click email attached with phishing attack.

15. Always download battery optimizer and Application cleaner as it would help device owner to close multiple running Application and inturn save battery getting drained quickly.

16. And many more and can drop queries through comment. Read more about Smartphone Review

Given the trend of Application usages and activities of many application provider initiatives to capture contextual pattern of device owner and subsequently makes million of $ by compromising device owner privacy, I consider this article as awareness one and should be pushed in viral form. If reader can develop awareness within their dear and near ones then one should consider it as social awareness drive

Why Indian Education System and Student Struggle

In recent years India experience huge surge in Educational Institution. The dynamics changed post the surge in India IT supremacy and that led to many opportunistic investor to open college under the pretext of Trust or NGO. It enabled them to get the land allocation as well as other approval from the respective local and central authority in No time. The huge compensation package offered these days by IT firms attracted young generation to opt for technical college.

The phenomenal growth infact turned as trap for young aspiring student who wants to excel in their life. It offered Educational Organization to offer quick entry to those professionals at very high entry fee. The entry of students in such non recognized college acts as beginning of struggle in their professional life. These aspirants parents in many cases sells all their properties in a visualization that their son/daughters are getting right set of mentoring, knowledge transfer and inturn would act as backbone in future.

I must admit over here that not all colleges are bad but it is also true that majority of them donot adhere the vision of skill set enhancement instead of that focus on monetary part of it. For each activity there are additional cost attached and in that scenario a simple points pops up in my mind that – why they are taking thousands of INR per semester fee from students.

In contrast, the level of knowledge transfer barring top notch college is in dire situation. The lecturers are not well versed with the latest technologies making news, research activities, and industrial requirement. It is really interesting that on raising such points the answer comes really funny that we are overloaded to number of lecturers, needs to complete syllabus and last resort is even more surprising and that is “ We are not allowed by the college management”.

I would like to ask few queries from Indian Students and those are as follows

1. Do anyone knows what is the mechanism of “ Problem Based Learning”
2. Do anyone knows the mechanism of problem statement process.
3. Do anyone knows what all big companies are doing and why they are successful.
4. What was the reason that you took one or another stream.
5. Are you happy with the current knowledge transfer skillset in your college.
6. Do you get constant update by your Professor regarding ongoing activities in regulatory environments.
7. Do anyone of you ever been told during skillset development that how one should prepare their professional life.
8. How many of you been trained during studies in presentation, communications and team management.

I can go on and on and list 1000 of queries as I also went through these problems 25 years back when I was student. It is surprising that the situation remains the same.

The above negligence by the educational institution act as malware in their knowledge set which keeps on denting young professional throughout their professional life. In India, the recent downturn clearly demonstrated the Good AC fitting Educational Institution is nothing but a movie theatre and when Student comes out in professional arena they realize that their education period was nothing but virtual world. Still it’s not too late and Educational Institution should adopt proactive approach in hiring Industry veterans also to transfer real world based learning program supported with cutting edge innovation knowledge transfer. For students, they should focus on in learning new technologies, focuses on Industry trend they want to move in, presentation and communications skill. Without above, the new generation of students will face stiff challenge to prosper in professional life. I also would like to thank Mr.Sagar Gupta for his contribution in accumulating information w.r.t student’s pain points.

New Wireless Service Providers License By Indian Government Triggered MVAS Downturn

Once the darling of Indian wireless segment, the MVAS service providers are now facing identity crisis. Late 90’s and early 2000’s, the immense underlined potential around Mobile Value Added Service (MVAS) caught many eyebrows and subsequently few innovative minds turned Entrepreneur dived into MVAS bandwagon to make the most of it. The unprecedented Operator driven and controlled mobile subscriber growth offered MVAS service providers to collaborate with Indian wireless service providers based on wireless service providers favored financial agreements.

The On Net deployment environment governed by wireless operator offer MVAS providers an opportunity to focus on product more than servicing. MVAS service providers such as Onmobile Global, Hungama, Comviva, Hungama and many more achieved impressive YoY growth. Observing quick success through bundled or replicated product line on basic SMS and IVR based mechanism attracted many small companies to try their luck in MVAS segment. The auto recurring revenue stream with double digit growth assured MVAS providers regarding Technology and Consumer trend but missed to read continuous indication of Indian government and regulators to cash on to growing wireless subscriber base.

MVAS ecosystem players as well as Industry analysts came out with very aggressive forecast and equity market that also rewarded listed MVAS service provider’s equity investors. The induction of new wireless service providers brought cheers within MVAS service providers but changed the ecosystem of MVAS segment the most. The tariff war initiated by Regional and Challengers with Incumbent Indian Wireless Service Providers impacted MVAS providers the most. The freebies such as free voice minutes, SMS, Music service offered by new entrant created buzz with Subscribers and Incumbent experienced more than 7-8% churn rate as both rural and urban subscribers opted for low tariff based services by regional and challengers.

The sudden tariff assault on Incumbent forced them to restructure their service assurance and delivery and thus pressurized MVAS service providers to surrender more revenue, resizing VAS service portfolio as well as servers, removal of VAS services with low user uptake. Incumbent changed their strategy and in order to keep the cost lower; initiated Off Net service ennoblement for their subscribers to counter regional and challenger service offerings.

The Off Net service ennoblement by Incumbent acted as “MVAS FDI for many innovative MVAS companies spread across different geographies to tap into vast Indian subscriber base”. The move also impacted dearly to Indian Wireless Subscriber Provider but that will be part of another article.

The above move quickly changed the MVAS dynamics with feature and technological superior unified messaging, unified communications, rich communications etc. The incumbent MVAS tried to match new entrant product line but met with another onslaught in the form of MVAS regulation. It is highlighted through many articles for the last many years that fall in MVAS revenue is primarily driven by MVAS regulation but the reality is mentioned above. The “government and regulators move to bring in additional wireless service providers without setting ecosystem centric guidelines”. The knockout punch came out on cancellation of 2G license by honorable Supreme Court of India. It sent the ripple factor on MVAS players with higher cost than revenue and in-turn initiated unprecedented recession in Telecom sector. The MVAS regulation and its amendment should not be blamed for the downfall of Indian MVAS ecosystems instead MVAS players must take the onus due to lack of strategic and tactical moves with dynamically changing industry dynamics.

MVAS Activation Hits Lowest Level – What about User Initiated MVAS Deactivation

The concern of MVAS service providers in recent month is falling MVAS adoption by subscribers due to regulatory enforcement of Consent Gateway. In TRAI released report, the MVAS activation fell from 69 million in June 2013 to 27.65 million in August 2013 end. It represent 40% fall in MVAS activation and service providers are blaming squarely on Consent Gateway regulatory enforcement.

TRAI released report does not indicate any deactivation initiated by subscriber by calling service providers customer care number or network agnostic TollFree number of 155223 for MVAS activation/deactivation

Indian print media on multiple occasions highlighted the unwarranted MVAS billing challenges faced by users especially rural based. It is also interesting to know that most of the common subscribers are not aware of deactivation TollFree number and faces many hurdles in getting their MVAS centric concerns registered with their serving wireless service providers.

TRAI should also release user initiated MVAS deactivation request to highlight the un-highlighted concerns of subscribers. The drastic fall in monthly MVAS activation is nothing but validation that everything is not fine with MVAS service delivery and Billing. TRAI should also come out with another amendment on MVAS in which the ecosystem players must allocate part of total generated MVAS towards the awareness of mobility subscriber.

It is widely expected that TRAI tentative next move may act as trigger for the consolidation in Indian MVAS ecosystem as well as differentiator for many mobile operators.

Continuous Downfall In MVAS Complaint And Billing Without Subscriber Consent – Far From Reality

The Indian Telecom Sector is experiencing regulations compliance deadline followed by regulation amendments. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) swing into action from 2010 to achieve higher protection and flexibility for subscriber. The intention was to create competitive environment through MNP, MVAS regulation and in-turn enforce better customer interaction management by wireless service provider. The broader vision was to enable subscriber choose their services or product or applications or even wireless operator.

During consultation processes with TRAI, most of the MVAS companies supported wireless operators to maintain the same mechanism running at that point of time instead of proposing new mechanism in order to protect their own interest too. The MVAS companies fall in the same cubical of wireless due to the fear factor of wireless service provider’s backlash in case of other way than network providers. The successful compliance by wireless service providers immediately opened new challenges for MVAS companies. MVAS companies started showing vulnerability in converting their service offering into paid service in MVAS regulatory environment of user initiated service request compared to network initiated service ennoblement.

Even after MVAS regulatory enforcement by TRAI, huge number of subscriber’s complaint to regulator regarding clear flaunting of processes by many MVAS players triggered another amendment. The regulatory amendment enforcing consent gateway implementation as must have clause for both Off Net and On Net players in order to continue their services. It opened the can of worms around malpractices in MVAS domain.

Recently, TRAI released report indicating fall in subscriber complaint post enforcement of consent gateway regulatory amendments. Regulatory bodies tried to take credit of subscriber pain point removal. The total number of MVAS complaint experienced dramatic fall from 259476 in June to 95510 in August 2013 whereas the MVAS billing without consent from subscriber in the said month also came down from 104996 to 9338. TRAI tried to claim that their initiatives improved overall QoS of MVAS as well as Billing without consent vs. Complaint ratio came down from 40.46% in June 2013 to 9.77% in August 2013.

It raises many queries such as initiatives to develop awareness within subscriber community by regulatory bodies, MVAS Service Providers and other ecosystem players. All TRAI claim is based on the number given by the service providers which service providers receive on their customer service Toll Free numbers. It is also interesting to note that many subscribers who try to launch their complaint on service providers customer care fails to receive the complaint ticket number.

Also how many Indian subscribers know their right about new activation, renewal, billing rollback, complaint and many more. The above number clearly indicates that less than 0.04% of the covered subscriber base of 700 million by TRAI is only facing issues around MVAS which is hard to digest. In a scenario, TRAI as well as wireless service provider initiate nationwide drive through print and TVC, the number would increase multi fold.

OEM Driven Next Wave of MVAS Revenue Generation

Indian Mobile device segment is making transition from Feature phone to Smartphone. The low price point based Smartphone is triggering device replacement cycle and it is widely expected that Indian Smartphone segment is going to achieve more than 20% share total Mobile device market size by the end of March 2014 given the changing user adoption metrics which would be more than 100% jump YoY. According to Cyber Media Research, India FY12-13 mobile device market size was 221.6 million with 15.2 million as Smartphone. India Smartphone sale for Q3FY13 came at 10.3 Mn and achieved 15% QoQ growth (Canalys Research).

The higher adoption of Smartphone and feature up-gradation of feature phone is opening new opportunities for MVAS service providers in India. As everyone is aware about ongoing regulatory imposed consent gateway impact on MVAS service providers business and technical domain, OEM would act as pillar to reignite MVAS adoption. As OEM offer MVAS products or service or applications bundled with their devices to differentiate themselves in crowded Indian device market.

The device OEM’s are now considered as new gateway by MVAS providers to acquire new subscribers by reusing their mobile network integration at low user acquisition, marketing and sales cost in a scenario of new enforced regulation of UCC (Unsolicited Commercial Communications), MVAS regulations, MVAS amendments and falling operator level support.

The OEM’s level integration offer layer 1 exposure of MVAS service provider’s product to end user instead of cluttered exposure they receive through mobile operator. The MVAS service providers failed to increase their user adoption by pushing mobile operator level hosted product line due to hundred of similar products offered by mobile operators.

With higher adoption of Smartphone, OEM’s are also working to create parallel MVAS ecosystem by reusing Mobile Operator network as delivery media. With more than 150 million active revenue generating data subscribers, OEM’s are shifting from legacy paid preloads to Agnostic MVAS ecosystem whereby focusing on Applications or AppStore taking care of both consumers and prosumer’s segment. OEM’s also realized their strength as MVAS enablers are also looking to develop recurring revenue out of it instead one time preload money.

Since, most of the MVAS service providers offering services through OEM integration gets the billing done at operator level due to the limitation of limited post paid user base and therefore also generate opportunity for Mobile Operators to get lion share of revenue for renting or share OSS/BSS. Interestingly, many MVAS service providers twisted their product in such as way which neutralizes many regulations and creates an environment where user request for pull instead of earlier push mechanism to access any MVAS services.

The changed dynamics from Mobile operator level MVAS campaign, marketing, and push to OEM based user initiated pull request is going to increase adoption as user will get MVAS services through pull services

Indian Wireless Service Providers Are Trying To Ride On OTT Player’s Success

Once termed as most promising sector for investment, Indian Wireless Sector is currently reeling under tremendous pressure to revive their business. The voice centric users are shying away from mobility service provider MVAS due to multiple reason and at the same time increasingly using mobility service provider network for data. The increasing usage of data is limited to web surfing especially social networking sites. Indian mobility service providers are still struggling in attracting more users willing to pay for applications instead users are using Google Play or Apple Store to download free applications.

In order to differentiate their value added service play, most of the mobility service providers are collaborating with big players in social networking, unified messaging and unified communication. The intention of mobility service providers is to increase the data usage and earn from users on the basis of data usages. On reviewing multiple mobility service providers’ online portal, it is evident that most of them are now offering free few months of access of top social network site and subsequently charge them on monthly basis.

The move is going to be working fine but it’s not a sustainable model for mobility service providers. Mobility users can easily download applications of social sites and use them heavily by taking bundled data plan at a very low cost. Most of the device OEM’s are already burning most prominent social networking player mobile applications in order to differentiate themselves.

Indian Mobility Service Providers must recognize that the business model cannot be sustained by playing OTT success card even though its OTT players who damaged Mobility Service Providers the most. The Mobility Service Providers cannot live in self denial and not to focus on in-house product innovation. It’s high time, Mobility Service Provider also include in-house development of cutting edge product or services or applications in order to own the Intellectual property rights as well as to have more sustainable recurring revenue.

Indian Wireless Service Providers Strategic Moves are Hurting Telecom Sector Ecosystem

Once termed as most prominent growth sector of growth is currently facing survival crisis. The ever mounting debt, penalties, 3G roaming, spectrum farming, spectrum auctions and other regulations are the talking point among ecosystem players to equity market. The Indian Telecom bubble which started post 1995 literally busted with 2G scam and subsequently cancellation of license by Honorable Supreme Court of India.

Even during the crisis period, Indian government successfully positioned 3G and BWA bubble among Mobile Operator mindset. Most of the Mobile Operator started thinking that 3G and BWA based services will change the negative growth tide and mobile subscriber will adopt services the way it happened during 2G & 2.5G based service. Mobile Operators failed to read the mind set of their esteemed user base and opted to quote exceptionally high bidding to own 3G and BWA spectrum. The move backfired with mounting debt, technology immaturity to ride on the upgraded to offer innovative services to end users.

Post committing first tactical mistake, the self inflicted tariff war turned the ecosystem as graveyard. The tariff war inflicted major financial burden on Incumbent Mobile Operator to retain their existing user base whereas the regional and challenger were grabbing the opportunity to acquire or enhance user base. The 2G license cancellation helped Telecom sector to recoup especially Incumbent Mobile Operators.

Telecom sector also moved quickly to raise voice tariff and cut on to freebies in order to propel ARPM (Average Revenue per Minute) and ARPU (Average Revenue Per Minute). The exponential growth in data volume and associated growth opportunity also excited most of the analyst. The blunder happened by Mobile Operator by not reducing their revenue share for allowing MVAS players impacted Mobile Operators the most. In order to fill the falling MVAS ARPU as well as revenue share out of total mobility revenue, Mobile Operators started reducing data download tariff to gain the first movers advantage.

In all, most of the Mobile Operators missed to analyze the core problem statement for continuous fall in most of the business segment and kept on blaming regulators that did not helped them either. Whatever is the situation of Indian Telecom Sectors, the Mobile Operators must come out honestly and take the onus of their current problems rather than blaming regulators for the same.
It was not regulators who enforced Mobile Operators to bid for spectrum and buy it at unreasonable level, tariff war initiated by regional players, bidding for 3G spectrum without understanding the roaming clause associated with it, maintaining high revenue share for legacy MVAS services. In conclusion, the lack of strategic move landed Indian Mobile Operators in self created shelf and it would be really difficult for them to come out of it.