Location-Based Services: Market Forecast, 2011-2015

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Although mobile operators continue to lose control over location information with the increased adoption of GPS, the strong growth in global location-based services presents some potentially significant revenue opportunities for them if they focus on the right areas, according to a new report from Pyramid Research (http://www.pyr.com/).
Location-Based Services: Market Forecast, 2011-2015 provides a detailed overview of the current status and size of the location-based services market. It takes a specific look at the positioning of the mobile operators within the value chain and how they can leverage their assets to take a stake in this growing opportunity. Several services are analyzed, but the biggest focus is on navigation, the largest in terms of revenue where various business models are establishing themselves and a range of different players are focusing their efforts, creating a dynamic and fast-changing market segment. Other services such as people finding and local search are also covered. Case studies are provided of operators in all geographic regions to provide a range of different examples and market approaches.
Download an excerpt, or purchase the report here: http://www.pyramidresearch.com/store/Report-Location-Based-Services.htm?sc=PRN060111_RPLBS
"Following many years of high expectations, the location-based services market is finally coming of age. Revenue is expected to reach US$10.3 billion in 2015, up from $2.8 billion in 2010," according to Jan ten Sythoff, Analyst at Large for Pyramid. "There are a number of different factors driving market growth, including increasing GPS and smartphone adoption, success of new business models, continued growth of mobile advertising and the wider coverage and higher speeds of mobile networks," adds ten Sythoff.
Growing adoption of GPS devices is the key driver, helping a whole host of different applications and services to grow. "For mobile operators, this is an opportunity to drive new revenue streams, but it is also a threat because it means access to location information is no longer their monopoly. In 2008 operators gained around 80 percent of all location-based service revenue. This has fallen to around half, but the total market has grown more than fivefold," he says.
Navigation, local search and people-locating services are the key areas for operators to target because this is where we believe they are best positioned. "There are important regional differences in the location-based services market that mobile operators needs to pay attention to," notes ten Sythoff. "Developed markets in APAC with very high GPS penetration, such as Japan and South Korea, are progressive in offering location-based services, people finding and advertising in particular while emerging regions such as Africa & the Middle East and Latin America have much lower GPS and smartphone penetration, and consequently there are fewer opportunities for location-based services," he indicates. Regulatory factors are driving investment into some markets while some operators are launching location-based services to differentiate in competitive markets such as Nigeria.
Location-Based Services: Market Forecast, 2011-2015 is part of Pyramid's research report series, and is priced at $3,495. Download an excerpt, or purchase the report here: http://www.pyramidresearch.com/store/Report-Location-Based-Services.htm?sc=PRN060111_RPLBS.
Contact:
Jennifer Baker, +1-617-871-1910, jbaker@pyr.com

SOURCE Pyramid Research

Percept Knorigin signs deal with Alcatel Lucent to provide digital content

(IANS) Indian digital media company Percept Knorigin (PK) said Wednesday it had signed an agreement with French telecom firm Alcatel Lucent to expand the distribution of digital entertainment content to its subscribers across India.
"PK will use Alcatel-Lucent's digital media store (DMS) to enhance its web and mobile entertainment service, which is offered to consumers through partnerships with telecom service providers such as Bharat Sachar Nigam Limited, Mahanager Telephone Nigam Limited and Bharti Airtel," the company said in a statement.
Digital media store simplifies the distribution of applications and multimedia content across any network to any connected device including PCs, mobile phones and TVs.
The company's services like Adchakra, Cinecurry, HelloTV and 51010 dial-a-video has experienced rapid growth of nearly 300 percent last year. Therefore, to meet the increasing demands the company needs a robust digital media platform that could fulfill the requirements of mobile and web service providers.
With more than 1.2 billion people, India provides an enormous potential audience for the company's entertainment content.
"We were looking at a scalable service which can keep pace with the great growth we experienced last year, one that can provide us with the capability to create services across mobile phones, tablets and laptops," said Viraj Malik, managing director and chief executive officer, Percept Knorigin.
"Our deployment of Alcatel-Lucent's digital media store will provide an all-in-one solution to the challenges service providers face in terms of content, platforms and business operations," he added.
Digital media store will enable service providers offering PK services to establish personalised portals supported by merchandising tools.source

Wait Could Be Longer For Better 3G Services

The promise of high-end phone services by mobile firms through the much-hyped third generation (3G) telecom technology seems to have hit a roadblock as customers complain of frequent call drops and inconsistent internet speeds.

Experts say it could take between six and nine months for the service to stabilise.

Anuj Kumar, a Delhi-based banker, preferred switching back to the 2G network after he got exasperated by deficient service and inconsistent network coverage.
"Problems of call drops increased once I switched to 3G network. The voice quality also became very poor. I was left with no option but to switch back to the basic network. In my line of job uninterrupted calls are a must," Kumar told IANS.
Pratibha Srivastava, a sales manager with a leading private bank, had similar grievance.
"The connectivity on the 3G network is very, very poor, especially when a person is on the move. While the network disconnects frequently, the voice quality is also not good at all," said Srivastava.
Among the nine-million odd people who are estimated to have opted for 3G services in the country, there are many others like Kumar and Srivastava who are facing similar problems with their services across the country.
The private telecom operators who shelled out billions for buying spectrum claim that every new technology needed some time for maturing and becoming consistent. According to them it was a matter of time for consumers to experience the promised quality of 3G.
But Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Chairman J.S. Sarma does not agree with the claims of operators.
"It is high time customers start getting quality services for the money they are paying. You cannot go on saying that the problems are caused due to initial phase launch for so long. Such excuses can be accepted for a week or so," Sarma told IANS.
"We also need to look into what kind of investments these people are making," Sarma said and added that the telecom watchdog was looking into the matter and would come out with a quality check very soon.
Mahesh Uppal, a telecom analyst and director of consultancy ComFirst India, maintains the networks are having problems because they were moving customers from 2G to 3G.
"Even I am having problems with the 3G network. I feel that this is because the networks are in a transition phase. Therefore some hiccups are probably expected. These companies are moving into 3G in an incremental way," Uppal told IANS.
On the other hand the telecom operators say that every new technology takes time to find its feet and so it is with 3G.
"You have to realise integrating new technology with an older one takes time -- 3G is like going back to square one. Operators almost have to build an entire network," said Rajan Matthews, director general of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).
"The operators will take almost 6-9 months to straighten out things."
Though the telecom watchdog does not have a record on the specific number of customers who have switched from 2G to 3G so far, some telecom operators have revealed their data individually.
While the dominant player Airtel currently has over two million 3G subscribers, Idea Cellular has one million across the country. On the whole, there are 811 million mobile phone subscribers in the country.

Jaideep Ghosh, director, KPMG advisory services, too, agrees with operators. Since the technology was new to India and companies were still in the implementation phase, some technical glitches were bound to come up, he said.

"Some operators launched it six months back and some are still in the process across all the circles. So it will be too early to a conclude that the services are good or bad," Ghosh told IANS. "We should wait till all operators launch full-fledged services."

A few operators also blame scarcity of spectrum to be a hitch for the service providers not being able to perform efficiently.

"The larger problem is not 2G or 3G but spectrum allocation. If you do not have enough spectrum, how would you be able to provide better services?" queried a senior official with a leading telecom operator.

Tata DoCoMo was the first private player to launch the 3G services in the country -- in November 2010. Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Idea Cellular are among the other operators who have launched their 3G services across the country.

Third generation telephony services are supposed to allow faster connectivity with some new applications such as Internet TV, video-on-demand, audio-video calls and high-speed data exchange.source

From Generation To Generation

The lure of 3G notwithstanding, telecom players have a long road ahead if they are to monetise it
That which is well built
will never be torn down.
That which is well latched
cannot slip away.
Those who do things well
will be honoured from generation to generation
Tao Te Ching
The auction of 3G or ‘third-generation’ spectrum has been followed up by the rollout of services that will enable the delivery of a range of next generation services — video streaming, movie downloads, video calls and so on. With as much as Rs 67,719 crore invested by operators in 3G spectrum, they are bound to follow Tao Te Ching’s wisdom in introducing 3G services in the market.

Bharti Airtel is using experiential marketing wherein it has several red-coloured “3G buses” on the move in major cities. Users can step into these buses and have a firsthand experience of 3G mobile services like mobile TV, video calls, high-speed downloads and so on. Its print and outdoor ad screams: ‘Airtel 3G is here’. Tata DoCoMo, known to have one of the largest footprint in retail stores amongst telecom operators, is turning thousands of its shops into “experience stores”. Consumers can walk in and experience services like video SMS, video streaming, mobile television, ultra-high-speed data transfers, route-finder, and live aarti. This assisted experiential marketing would help in making the millions who have not used GPRS yet more familiar with what 3G is all about.
Many of us are familiar by now with Superhero ZooZoo flying all over our TV screens. That was Vodafone’s 3G launch strategy, that is, use its much-appreciated TV ads to announce the introduction of 3G services in India. Superhero ZooZoo stands for the brand personality of 3G — Faster, smarter and better — and helps educate subscribers on this new technology in a simple manner. The different things Superhero ZooZoo does in the TVC indirectly point to the quality of the 3G network that Vodafone aspires to offer. Vodafone is also offering free time-bound 3G trial to its current GPRS subscribers. This not only serves the purpose of pre-purchase service trial but also provides Vodafone with valuable usage data from which it can infer which services are more sought after, how the data consumption is likely to change after mass introduction of 3G services and so on.
On the other hand, Reliance is focusing more on partnerships to offer popular value-added services. It has tied up with Universal Music Group so as to offer music streaming and is promoting its new App Store on Reliance 3G that enables you to get directions while on the road, tips on cooking and yoga, and so on.
Lessons from PSUs
There are some lessons to be learned from BSNL/MTNL in terms of 3G strategies that did not work well. Users found their 2G to 3G SIM card exchange system complicated since one was required to send an SMS as “M3G120” to 53733 and confirm the SMS you get back as “M3G120 Y” to 53733. BSNL’s strategy of offering 3G services at the same price as 2G perhaps weaned subscribers from competition. However, this did not lead to higher data average revenue per user (ARPU) vis-à-vis the 2G network. (In Japan, innovative data plans and highlighting the relevance of 3G services have enabled high penetration and data ARPU.) Moreover, MTNL and BSNL were not able to provide enough marketing thrust to 3G services, thus leading to a lack of awareness of their 3G services. It must not be forgotten that the target customers for a service like 3G prefer young and energetic brands like Airtel and Vodafone.
To provide critical insights in order to close in on a strategy for the deployment of 3G services, the eTech Group@IMRB, active in the area of telecom-related market research for several years now, recently carried out a Syndicated Study on 3G Mobile Services in India christened “The World Of 3nity”. The first round of the study has been conducted amongst as many as 10,000 mobile subscribers and 1,520 establishments across top cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The study also covers views of several industry experts on the India 3G market. Mobile operators seem to be on the right track since as many as 72 per cent of mobile users assume understanding usage of 3G services would be complicated and someone would need to demonstrate it to them first.
The study reveals that only 9 per cent own a 3G-enabled handset, but 82 per cent are willing to switch to a new (3G-enabled) handset to avail 3G services, provided it lies in the Rs 4,200- 6,400 price band. This is in line with the fact that Indian handset manufacturers have already started offering 3G-enabled handsets at ‘middle class affordable’ prices. With a plethora of handsets in the market, the bigger issue is the pricing of the 3G services. As we know, India is a price-sensitive market and for 3G to percolate to the masses the price would need to be quite low and attractive — to start with. However, that is unlikely to happen given the huge cost of spectrum which itself is scarce and the fact that some of the winners are operating in the low-ARPU voice market.
The consumer segment study was carried out using random sampling with a minimum quota for some aspects such as SEC A, B, C & D and subscribers of the 3G spectrum winners while. The fieldwork was completed in December 2010.
As per the IMRB study, 32 per cent are aware of 3G mobile services. Amongst those who are aware, as many as 93 per cent associate video calling with 3G. Here is what an industry expert says about other 3G services: “Purely utilitarian stuff like traffic signal, map, directions, facilities, restaurants and purely entertainment stuff like gaming, infotainment will be very big. Casual gaming will dominate.”
Video versus voice
The report also reveals even more interesting information — that while video calling may be the most awaited 3G application, the main reason people would consider subscribing to 3G services is that 73 per cent of mobile subscribers believe it will mean better voice quality. Experts believe that in the first instance, 3G will be used by many operators to improve their overall network quality and retain voice customers.
Video calling could well emerge as the next big mobile application. Even the unlettered can use it to communicate. However, there are certain constraints — both sides need a double camera phone. It is ironical that rural citizens who require high-speed applications (telemedicine, e-education) the most can afford them the least. In Korea, the government accelerated the adoption of 3G with subsidies for operators as well as mobile phone manufacturers. In India too, the government and industry would need to work together to take 3G to the villages.
The business segment study was done purposely amongst those involved with mobile/telecom decision-making. In case of SMEs, mobile usage is restricted to voice. Besides, messaging is also used especially by small enterprises. However, awareness of specialised enterprise applications such as ERP and CRM on mobile was found to be abysmal. In order to increase penetration of 3G amongst enterprises, it is important to create higher awareness about how they can utilise 3G for business purposes.
We have seen in global markets that it takes time for 3G to transcend from a technology to becoming a household need. The recent rollout of 3G in China has seen only 4 per cent adoption after two years of aggressive marketing by the players and evident government backing. Since none of the operators have a national footprint we are likely to see partnerships being forged amongst operators to weave together a national offering. And with consolidation in the telecom industry on the cards in the next few years, only time will tell who religiously followed Tao Te Ching’s wisdom.

The author is Group Business Director, IMRB

source

An Insight Into OnMobile's Birth... A True Story

In 2002, Arvind Rao and Mouli Raman came close to shutting OnMobile, the company they had founded two years prior to that. They had nearly exhausted their $15 million of venture capital money , partly because of extensive travels around the world in search of the first customer.

Telecom operators were large, and none wanted to be a guinea pig for OnMobile's untested mobile products such as ringtones, alerts and voice-based searches. Rao remembers sitting in his California office wondering how to lay off his 30-40 people.

"The VC was acting tough. We wondered whether we should shut shop, and just tell the VC we gave it our best shot."
But somewhere deep within, they believed in their idea. "That's what I feel strongly about in entrepreneurship. You have to have conviction that the product will work. We had that conviction. So we decided to stick through the bad phase."

It's not official, but it's possible that OnMobile is today the world's biggest company providing mobile value-added services (VAS) other than voice-calls and SMSes. They have been told by one of the world's largest mobile operators that they account for 30% of the operator's global contentbased VAS revenues. The remaining 70% is fragmented. Large telecom operators in India have said that OnMobile accounts for 2-4 % of their overall revenues. "Worldwide, we have 90 million paying users every month," says Rao.

The story of OnMobile actually begins in Infosys Technologies. Mouli Raman, who grew up in a small town in Tamil Nadu and who had joined Infosys in 1988 after an engineering course in REC Allahabad, was servicing startups in California in the late 1990s. Raman felt it was possible to do in India what these tech startups were doing. It was the peak of the internet boom and he and a group in Infosys thought of developing internet products, and started with one that sent alerts to websites. Infosys encouraged the effort.

"But when the product's first version was ready, we realized we would have to spin it out from Infosys. The people, the risk mindset required for this venture were very different from that of a services company," says Mouli. That's when Rao entered. Rao, who grew up in Mumbai and had left for the US in 1980 after an engineering degree from IIT-Bombay , was in the venture capital industry in New York. He was interested in starting an India technology fund.

"For that, I was one day meeting Nandan (Nilekani) and Phaneesh Murthy in New York. It were the rah-rah days of the internet, and Phaneesh envied the lives of VCs (the superstars of those days). He wanted to get involved in the buzz. Nandan had been funding this Infy (Mouli) group, and he was keen to get it off his back."

Thus was born OnMobile. Rao found Mouli and team to be very good. "But I felt they missed the business model and the target . I was coming to it from the target of mobile and VAS; I felt the internet had a difficult-to-prove business model."

So the website alert product was turned into a mobile alert one. They introduced other applications, including one that allowed users to call up to get cricket scores and cricket biographies.

The first customer break came with Orange (later Hutch) in Mumbai. Asim Ghosh and Sandeep Das, who headed that operation, liked OnMobile's work. "Das was a big cricket fan. He liked our cricket app, but said he cannot pay us anything. So we agreed on a revenue share model," Rao says. This was also around the time that OnMobile went through its crisis , with cash nearly depleted.

The Orange service slowly gained acceptance , and it later took it all-India . "That's when others saw it; Airtel called us, Idea called us. After that we never looked back."

OnMobile's strength was its risk sharing and joint work with operators to make the products a success, instead of simply licensing its technology. It made gaining operator acceptance easy; it also brought them so close to customers that they innovated fast. "We evolved the ringback tone product so well, that though we were not the first with it in the world, ours became a blockbuster success ," says Mouli.

In 2008, they signed two agreements, with Vodafone and Telefonica of Spain, which expanded their global presence phenomenally. Vodafone wanted them to replicate their India success around the world. Telefonica wanted them to launch in 13 countries in Latin America. Mouli says they frequently receive requests from developed market operators to teach them the things being done in Asia. "They are hit by Google and Apple (app stores), and they believe we can help them counter this." source

“News near you” on Google News for mobile

Google News for mobile devices has added a “news near you” section that displays headlines related your device’s current location.
Its ease of use is impressive — just grant the site access to your device’s current location and it pulls up local headlines. While it goes further than any other mobile news aggregation site, it has flaws that leave room for another company or news organization to do better.

The “News near you” section on Google News for mobile.

More on that later, but first the key context on this feature and what Google is up to.
Google executive Eric Schmidt declared at the start of this year that the search giant would be all about preparing for the “mobile revolution.” All of its 2011 strategic initiatives focus on mobile, he said. “Between the geolocation capability of the phone and the power of the phone’s browser platform, it is possible to deliver personalized information about where you are, what you could do there right now, and so forth — and to deliver such a service at scale,” Schmidt wrote in the Harvard Business Review. Google is making mobile its first focus on all products.
Google News has had a local section on its website since 2008, but this new addition to the mobile version has precise location targeting. The desktop site places me in the Washington metro area, and shows me headlines from all over D.C., Maryland and Virginia. The mobile site detects my location specifically (and correctly) in Arlington, Va., and serves only very local news and features.
Now for the flaws, which leave room for a competitor to elbow into this mobile/local aggregation market.
First, the sources I see in my local feed from Google are not so diverse. Most of my headlines are from The Washington Post; a couple come from the Arlington Sun Gazette community newspaper. Google does, however, show me a couple posts from an active local news blog, ARLnow.com. There is room for either Google or a competitor to make a more comprehensive product.
The bigger problem for Google is that location is only one piece of the quest for the holy grail of online news: relevancy. So far, Google News is doing a good job of determining my location and aggregating stories that mention that location. But that’s where it ends, and that’s not good enough. What’s missing is the curation after the aggregation.

Two of the top five “local” stories Google News served me were either not really local or not really a story.

For example, the third story Google News showed me this morning was about the Armed Forces Network receiving broadcast journalism awards. A few of the award winners are here in Arlington, so it is a legitimately local story, but it’s not very relevant to me and certainly not among the top three things I want to read about my community today. The fifth headline in my Google News feed was a job listing for Lockheed Martin (based in Arlington, yes, but not news).
To create a market-dominating filter of local news, someone will need to curate the pool of aggregated news to match each reader’s interests, browsing history and social network activity, in addition to his or her location.
The killer app would be one that filters a breadth of local aggregation like Outside.in through a hyperpersonalized social filter sought by mobile services such as News.me and Trove combined with the personal browsing and search history of Google.
And even with all that, it remains to be seen whether automated filtering can entirely replace the role of a human editor in subjective news judgment. A human news editor would know a job posting is not a local news story no matter how many times it mentions your city’s name.
There remains an opportunity for media companies to be the dominant source of news aggregation and curation in their local markets, if they leverage their human touch and institutional knowledge as an advantage over Google and catch up on some of the technological systems. But many news organizations will first have to conquer reflexive fears about linking out and sending readers to other sites.
Your opinions are welcome here. Can a news organization curate better than Google’s engineering-based system? Will Google’s algorithms eventually be better than a human editor? Or will both approaches co-exist?   source

3G Hiccups

Walk into any mobile service provider's showroom and what you will see are the letters 3G everywhere. You will also be invited to see demos of ‘blazing' speeds. It is only when you go for a 3G connection that you start wondering whether you are just a guinea pig for the service provider.

Many of those who went for 3G services during the demo period got the advertised speeds. Only when the services went paid did the problems start.

One customer who suddenly found the speed drop to 30 kbps from over 3 Mbps was told to ‘enable 3G' again by sending an SMS ‘3G'. When he sent the SMS, he got the reply ‘3G services already enabled'. When he tried to recharge his account with a 3G pack, he was informed that the 2G Internet services were already on, and that he would have to disable it. He was told to send a ‘stop' request, which he promptly did and got a reply that the Internet services had been stopped. When he tried to recharge again, he got the message that the 3G pack could not be activated as he had over 2000 MB of data left in his account. To get the 3G services, he had to bring the unused data to below 50 MB. The ‘helpful' customer care lady asked him to keep downloading continuously so that the data came down below 50 MB. It would take weeks, the customer pleaded. There is no other alternative, was the reply from the customer care. The customer got fed up, threw away his card and got a new 3G enabled connection.

Another customer (with another operator) who got only 2G speeds was billed for 3G services. The 3G connectivity was also scrappy. The call centre was clueless about what she was being billed — for 3G or 2G. She got fed up and went back to 2G; at least the speed was consistent. When she tried to deactivate 3G, she got a message that 3G services were not active in her number. A call to the customer service department confirmed that 3G services were in fact, active.

Another operator attracts customers by advertising speeds of 7.2 MBPS. When a potential customer wanted to test the speed at the operator's demo zone, he was informed that the services were still not ‘stable' and that he would get speeds of only around 3 MBPS. The speed test revealed the real speed — it never crossed 2.2 MBPS!

This is the case with CDMA operators too. One operator who advertises 3G speeds in its USB modem had this excuse when the customer complained he was getting only around 1 MBPS against the advertised 3.1 MBPS. The customer service was surprised. “What? You get 1 MBPS? If you get speeds above 500 kbps, according to us, you are getting above average speeds.”

So, if you are ‘excited' about 3G, it's better to wait till the operators get a hang of their services! source

InMobi’s new mobile payments service to reach three billion users

By James Ratemo

InMobi, the world's largest independent mobile ad network, announced the launch of InMobi SmartPay™, a performance based global mobile payments solution.

InMobi SmartPay™ will enable app developers, game companies, and content providers in the US $200bn mobile content and virtual goods space to expand their business and monetize their users quickly and easily into new markets by providing a one-time, no-cost, single point of integration across multiple countries.

The solution offers consumers a seamless, pure mobile checkout experience using secure, direct to carrier billing to start, but expanding to all forms of mobile payment methods including credit cards, PayPal, and local mobile wallets by the end of 2011.

†The new solution already offers reach to over one billion consumers in seven countries, including the US, UK, Germany, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and Malaysia, with huge growth plans to expand to over three billion consumers in 30 countries by the end of the year.

"Our mission is to connect businesses and developers to consumers around the world with innovative, best of breed mobile technology and services. InMobi SmartPay™ will help us with that journey and our evolution as a company to be a key technology enabler within the global mobile ecosystem, especially for the developer community," said Naveen Tewari, CEO of InMobi,

"Expanding to new markets is an extremely complex process today, especially for small developer teams sitting in a single geography. InMobi SmartPay™ exists to simplify the process through a single point of integration and management of all tax, legal, and customer support issues leveraging our in-market expertise. Even more importantly, we are an intelligent solution providing consumers with a low friction, secure purchase flow, and data-driven insights to help maximize conversion," said Piyush Shah, Vice President of InMobi SmartPay,

InMobi SmartPay™ is already active with numerous clients globally and is moving into private beta over the next 60 to 90 days before opening up the service to the entire market in Q3, 2011.

The launch of InMobi SmartPay™ is the first global offering of its kind in the mobile advertising market. It combines InMobi’s massive global ad network of nearly 32 billion ads monthly in 200 countries with a mobile payments solution, enhancing its core competitive advantage for clients by integrating actual purchasing behavior into its real-time ad-serving feedback loop. Tracking from ad to conversion is a major leap forward for developers and digital goods providers globally.

Major competitive advantages of the service include its ability to monetize three billion mobile consumers in 30 countries easily through mobile web and Android in-app billing by the end of 2011.

With the service also comes analytics tools that offer transaction performance insights that help clients maximize conversion in every country.

Apart from integration with the InMobi ad network providing post click performance optimization from ad impression to purchase. It also comes with secure and efficient technology that handles regulatory fraud, tax, currency, and settlements across all countries. source

Tablets in DEMAND

Last year, when Dow Jones tied up with Bharti Airtel to feature financial and business news from Wall Street Journal and its own wire services on mobile devices in India, the MD of Dow Jones India, Mitya New, showcased the content on the Apple iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab. This was surely indicative of things to come.The tablet PC is emerging as a must-have among the tech-savvy in India. However, tablet users in India till very recently had very little choice - they could either buy an Apple iPad or the Android-driven Samsung Galaxy Tab. There is the Olive tablet too since October last year, but apart from its pricing, it has failed to create an impact.
Last week, the tablet options doubled with the launch of Acer India's Iconia Tab A500, an Andriod-based 10.1-inch gadget, and the Windows 7-based Iconic Tab W500 in the same size. The A500 works on Google's Android Honeycomb 3.0 platform, the first tablet with Honeycomb 3.0 in India.

Several players are just waiting in the wings to launch their own tablets. "We can expect multiple launches in July-August so that the tablets are on the shelves by September. Lenovo's LePad, BlackBerry's Playbook, HP's Palm tablet and Cisco CIUS are expected to hit India in the coming months," said Sumanta Mukherjee, lead analyst for PC products, Cybermedia Research.
Samsung has announced two more tablets and Acer has lined up a dual touchscreen notebook for later this year.
There are no official figures for the number of tablet users in India as it is a very nascent market. However, the current market leader is the iPad, according to market watchers, despite its late official launch in India in March 2010. According to sources, iPad2 shipped 20,000 pieces for its India launch on April 29, which sold out within 72 hours. The current waiting period for an iPad2 is about 21 days.
There is the likelihood of local Indian mobile phone makers such as Micromax coming out with their own tablet soon. Also, there is talk of Reliance Infotel, which has bagged a 3G licence, coming up with its own branded tablet, Mukherjee added.
The market is niche and only a small percentage of Indians are likely to buy a tablet if they already have a mobile phone and a laptop or PC, said Rajiv Makhni, managing editor (technology), NDTV. "The tablet market will get very interesting the minute a company has the foresight to launch a tablet priced under Rs 15,000. If that happens, it will penetrate the masses and the tablet will become the new all-in-one entertainment and communication station."
Sandip Biswas, director, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, said, "We should not be surprised if, in two years' time, Android-based tablets priced below Rs 10,000 emerge. Anyway, the tablets will need to come below Rs 20,000 in order to address larger consumer numbers. People are already working on that in the Far East and Asian markets."
Tablet-makers are optimistic. "Across India, the response for the Tab has been huge and Samsung is already targeting a 50% share of the Indian tablet market this year," said Ranjit Yadav, Samsung's country head for mobile and IT.
"With consumers getting more technologically aware and willing to experiment with new gadgets, we are confident that tablet PCs will capture a significant share in the market, which will focus on early adopters and tech-savvy users who want to experience more content on the move," said S. Rajendran, chief marketing office, Acer India.
"Tablets are aimed at a new and emerging consumer demand that is poised to grow phenomenally. Consumers have already started to explore the tablet's limitless potential," said Vishal Dhupar, MD, Asia South, NVIDIA, a computing technologies firm that has partnered with Motorola, Samsung, Acer, LG and Asus for their tablets.
"As our professional and personal lives get more intertwined, consumers will increasingly look for a device that can cater to both professional and leisure needs. With the growing availability of high-speed mobile and wi-fi networks, mobile devices will also be used for performance-intensive tasks handled so far by traditional PCs."

"We believe that tablets will end up being an awesome content consumption device as people have mobile lives and expect to see and share content in real time. An improving global economic situation is likely t find customer spends increasing on aspirational products. With more useful and interactive content, the demand for handheld devices has already started to pick up. Tablets have started to find usages inside corporates, hotels, education and healthcare. This will further consolidate the tablet's position as a specific category and not as a replacement to netbook or a notebook," said Jagdeep Kochar, VP & business head, EBS Worldwide.
Deloitte's Biswas said, "Enterprise usage - medical representatives, sales and retail service personnel are all potential users of tablets. Even payments on delivery can be effected on tablets."
In terms of relative usage, Biswas said, "People will continue to use mobile phones for its primary voice utility; the tablet will become the mobile PC device and laptops/notebooks will sit on table tops in offices or homes. The desktop PC's days are over."
By March 2013, Deloitte expects that worldwide, 35% of the overall tablet PC base of around 100 million units will be delivered by iPhones, 40% by Android-based tablets, 15% by Windows-based tablets and the remaining by other technologie. source

VRock Gets Interim Order Against RCOM For IPL4 VAS

Hot News is hot again: VRock mobile has obtained an interim order from the Delhi High Court, which restricts the provisioning of SMS and Interactive Voice Response (IVR; voice portal) services being provided by Reliance Communications to customers, for the Indian Premier League (IPL). The order was obtained ex-parte; Justice V. K. Jain, upon hearing arguments from the plaintiff (vRock) said that an interim permission will be granted to Reliance Communications, subject to making a provisional payment of 25% of revenue earned so far by providing value added services related to IPL 4, and continuing to pay 25% of revenue earned, and subject to the same terms and conditions since vRock has agreed upon with Tata Indicom. If Reliance Communications doesn’t approach vRock for this deal, then there is an injunction preventing it from providing SMS and IVR services. Season four of the IPL is expected to end by May 28th, and the court took into account that the matter needs to be heard at the earliest. MediaNama was present at the hearing.
Explaining the concept of Hot News, Pravin Anand, representing vRock Mobile, pointed out that news such as Cricket scores is time sensitive, and while it is in outside the realm of copyright, it is a case of quasi-property; IPL has a limited timeframe. Additionally, he said that Reliance Communications (RCOM) cannot deny that the rights to Cricket scores via SMS and IVR exist, since it had itself entered into commercial negotiations with vRock for the very same rights for the ICC Cricket World Cup; talks had ended when an agreement over the amount to be paid to RCOM for the rights could not be reached. RCOM, as we had reported earlier, had acquired all mobile rights for the ICC Cricket World Cup. vRock also disclosed that it has paid Rs. 65 crore ($14.5 million) for a period of 5 years for the rights.
Please note that this is an interim order, issued ex-parte, which means that Reliance Communications was not represented.
Implications
One immediate implication of this is that RCOM will have to disclose revenue earned from providing these services to the court, if it does tie up vRock, else it will have to stop its SMS and IVR services. Secondly, the question of who owns the right to provide Cricket scores, even if for commercial purposes, lends itself to a larger debate of whether information of a public event is a case of quasi-property, and the organizer has ownership of this information. Remember that the owner of the event controls access to it. source

Apalya wins Global Mobile TV Rights for IPL 2011 and 2012

So it’s confirmed, albeit rather late, and almost a full month after we had reported it: Apalya, the mobile and broadband video streaming platform, which has the widest distribution with telecom operators in the country, has announced the acquisition of exclusive mobile and video streaming rights for all matches from the Indian Premier League, for two years including the current 2011 season. Apalya was also the Mobile TV partner for IPL’s 2009 & 10 season. Meanwhile, vRock Mobile was in court yesterday, trying to protect its IPL4 SMS and IVR rights.

Other companies delivering TV content over mobile include Percept Knorigin with BSNL, and Geodesic’s joint venture with the Zee group for Mundu TV. Also note that ZengaTV, which had acquired live streaming rights for the first season of the Indian Premier League, recently inked a mobile streaming partnership with (still) UTV owned Indiagames.

Apalya also recently tied up with Bharti Airtel for broadband services, delivering TV and video on demand content over wireline broadband at Rs 99 per month; not a net-neutral service. The company also had partnerships with Vodafone for the mobile broadcast of Cricket World Cup 2011, claims to have partnerships with more than 150 televison channels in India. source

Mobile video calls all set to catch-up in India

According to a new survey conducted by PwC, a consulting firm, the Mobile VAS market in India is set to grow to a Rs 55 thousand crore industry by 2015.

Thanks to the  BWA and 3G network roll outs. Speed that so long has been a deterrent for overall VAS adoption, will now be a key enabler that will drive adoption of VAS.

Here are some interesting results of the PwC report titled Value Added Service: The Next Wave:

87 per cent of the people surveyed are aware of VAS based on regional entertainment, in the form of regional music videos and movies clips; 47 per cent are ready to adopt the services in future and are also willing to spend Rs 50 per month on regional entertainment.

71 per cent survey respondents are aware of the VAS of medical advice from doctor; 49 per cent of the users are willing to adopt the service in future at a price of Rs 73 per month.

Four out of five people are willing to use SMS in future and spend monthly average of Rs 42. In terms of revenues, SMS can contribute nearly Rs. 14,000 crore of revenue by 2015 for the mobile VAS value chain players. The operators, however, would need to focus on the multilingual SMSs and handset manufacturers would need to design keyboards (or applications) which are designed for ease of typing in Indian languages.

Future adoption for medical advice from doctors is higher for SEC B (51 per cent) as compared to SEC A (49 per cent) and SEC C (47 per cent).

Subscription interest for online gaming is almost double for students (57 per cent) compared to 30 per cent for those working full time.

Interestingly, future adoption for making video calls is higher for SEC C (54 per cent) than SEC A (48 per cent) and SEC B (49 per cent).

Even though mCommerce has awareness levels of more than 60 per cent for most of the services, future adoption rates are lower. This points towards the special focus that is required to remove roadblocks to adoption like usability and data security concerns.

On the road ahead for VAS, Sivarama concluded:
“With handset manufacturers entering VAS ecosystem with powerful operating systems and associated Application Stores, we will see shifts in the industry with handset players, VAS vendors and service providers collaborating and competing with each other. The revenue share of VAS players is expected to increase over time.”. source

CloudTalk Launches Voice Social Network for iPhone and Android

Emotion may be the missing element in Facebook and Twitter posts. A new mobile social network called CloudTalk adds this by having you use your voice to post, as well as allowing text, photos, and videos. CloudTalk today released mobile apps that let users interact with the primarily voice-based social network on iPhones and Android phones.

San Francisco-based CloudTalk's Chairman and CEO David Haden demonstrated the new app to PCMag.com last week. Hayden had previously released a CloudTalk predecessor, called Pana.ma in 2009. Not only can users leave voice messages in a social network feed, but our meeting was recorded using the service. CloudTalk also lets users create and participate in public communities; current examples of these commnunities include Digital Photography, Singles Club, Music, and Apple Talk.

A Web version of CloudTalk is available, but it's still in beta, and doesn't include all the features of the mobile apps, such as community content. "We're leading with the smart phones, because that's what people use for communication. We're at a transition where the mobile is more important than the Web," said CloudTalk's chief marketing officer, John Linney.

Unlike Facebook or Twitter, though, you don't have a set group of friends or contacts for all your group conversations in CloudTalk. Instead, you invite selected contacts as participants for each conversation, and can add more if necessary. The conversations remain available, so you can add to them at any point in the future and all participants will be updated, somewhat similar to how Google Wave works. Users can also send private messages to contacts, but unlike in Facebook, you don't get to see all of another user's contacts on a rich profile page, and you're not prompted to add friends. It sounds a bit like T-Mobile's Bobsled, but with an emphasis on messages, rather than VOIP calls.

"The friction caused by phone calls when we can't take them, and voice mail that feels like a dead end, is making it harder to use our voice in daily communications with our social circle. CloudTalk stands out as the only platform to put the power and convenience of voice at the center of the social communications experience," wrote Hayden on a company press release, announcing the service. "CloudTalk makes talking as easy as texting, so we can freely use our voices to convey emotion, avoid misconstrued tone and get a message across far more quickly and powerfully than text alone."

Not only does voice add emotion, but some concepts are just too involved for a simple tweet to do the job. This could be of particular interest to businesses, which may need to collaborate with complex instructions and descriptions, either for procedures, strategies, or products.

CloudTalk iPhone and Android apps are free and available starting today on the Apple App Store and the Android Marketplace. Look for an in-depth review of the service on PCMag.com in the coming days.source

Airtel Closes Operations in Manipur

India’s largest GSM mobile service operator Bharti airtel shuts down its operations in Manipur state leaving over three lakh subscribers in the North East telecom circle in the lurch.

According to the statement by the All Manipur Airtel Workers Union “following continuous attacks by militants on telecom towers and employees associated with the Airtel, the BTS/Mobile Network tower are now switch off which will breakdown the mobile services of Airtel in Manipur state.”

Presently there are 5 Mobile Service Providers (GSM/CDMA) in the North East region – Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), Airtel, Aircel, Vodafone, Reliance and Tata Indicom. The services of almost all the private operators have been affected except state-owned BSNL.

All the five GSM/CDMA service providers operating in the state having threatened to shut down their operations following threats, attacks and extortion notices from different militant groups in the past few weeks.

The decision of the Airtel Manipur Union to switch off all BTS towers of the service provider will lead to the closure of all Airtel network in the state till a amiable solution is brought. However only those customers located in capital city Imphal were currently being able to use their services.

It is significant to say that different militant groups have demanded huge sums of money from the mobile phone service providers in the state, at least two employees of two different companies have been shot in the past two weeks. The police have so far registered as many as six cases of extortion and threats, but no arrests have been made as yet.source

How Osiyan Got VAS CONTRACTS??

The office of former Telecom Minister A. Raja pushed for contracts for Osiyan Communications, a New Delhi based mobile Value Added Services solutions provider, corporate lobbyist Niira Radia has allegedly said in a statement to the India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the 2G spectrum scam. A copy of what is allegedly Radia’s statement (pdf) to the CBI has been hosted ondailybhaskar.com.

According to that statement, after hearing phone calls that the CBI had recorded, Radia revealed that she had received a request from the office of former Telecom Minister A. Raja’s office to lobby for Osiyan and recommend the company to her clients, Unitech and Tata Teleservices.

She says, ” We had received request from Minister’s office for Osiyan which is a value added services company in the Telecom Sector. They wanted us to recommend their company for introduction to Unitech and Tata Teleservices Ltd. In this regard I had called Rohit Chandra (CEO of Unitech Wireless), to check whether they had called for tenders for USSD and CRBT (the transcript reads USSB and PRBT) and if possible they may consider they may consider this company..”

On being asked by Chandra, if she was acquainted with Mahesh Jain, she responds that she did not know Mahesh Jain but had seen him in Minister A. Raja’s office.  ” On being further asked whether I knew Mr.Mahesh Jain and whether M/S Osiyan Communication was a company related to Mr.Mahesh Jain, I state that I do not know him personally but I had seen him in Minister’s (A. Raja) office. I further state that it was not in my knowledge whether Osiyan is owned by Shri Mahesh Jain but it was in my knowledge that Shri Mahesh Jain is associated with the company.”

In another call, she inquires about the status of Osiyan’s proposal, to which Sanjay Chandra answers that the documents have been sent. ” I state that I had this call with Rohit, the call, I am inquiring about the status of Osiyan (Osian in the transcript) proposal to Unitech to which, Rohit informs me that he has sent across those documents.”

She also asks Vishal Mehta, Group CEO of Unitech, to let Sanjay Chandra know that she was being chased for Osiyan Communications in a separate call.

What is Osiyan?

Osiyan’s website isn’t functional – there’s just a landing page. According to a presentation that we found on Scribd, the company was founded in 1997 and offers services and solutions such as MCA, SMSC, UMS, CRBT, LBS, 3G, USSD, IVRS and M-Commerce, among others, and claims to have deployments in US, Oman, Uganda, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Brunei, New Zealand, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Laos and Indonesia. In India, the presentation suggests deployments on Vodafone, Airtel, BSNL, BPL (Loop), HFCL, MTNL, Spice, Idea, Reliance Communications and even Tata Indicom.source

UAE Restrictions Will Hit All Wireless Providers, Says RIM

Potential changes to wireless data services for very small business in the United Arab Emirates will affect the entire industry and not just BlackBerry services, Research In Motion said Saturday.

The company said that it was not being singled out by the telecom regulator, amidst reports that the regulator plans to curb BlackBerry enterprise services to business with fewer than 20 mobile subscriptions.

The UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has confirmed to RIM that any potential policy regarding enterprise services in the UAE would be an industry-wide policy, not specific to BlackBerry, applying equally to all enterprise solution providers and with the intent of avoiding any impact on legitimate enterprise customers, RIM said in a statement.

RIM's statement follows a report last week in The National, a newspaper in Abu Dhabi, that said the TRA had instructed local operator, Etisalat, that very small companies will have their BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) accounts terminated at the end of the month. Such customers would be able to move to BlackBerry Internet Service, which does not rely on private servers, the newspaper said.

The TRA did not return calls asking for comment.

The proposed rule comes at a time when some governments in the Middle East are facing protest movements that use online communications and social networks for planing and coordination. By imposing such a rule, the UAE may want higher control on the kind of users who will have access to encrypted services, analysts said.

The TRA said in a statement on Saturday that it confirms the continuation of all Blackberry services in the UAE to both individuals and to business customers, including BlackBerry messenger, BlackBerry email and BlackBerry browsing. It said it would clarify to operators any confusion with regard to TRA regulations, without providing the context for the announcement.

A number of countries, including India, are attempting to get access to corporate mail on BES. India holds that its security rules allow law enforcement agencies access to all communications when required. RIM has said that it is not technically feasible for it to provide access to BES communications, as the encryption keys are with customers. It has however offered solutions to the Indian government for lawful access to its other services.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address isjohn_ribeiro@idg.com.

source

Bharti Airtel launches 'Airtel Photos' in association with Zoomin

Now upload your photos online and get the prints at your doorstep with Airtel Photos

• Service available to all Airtel broadband customers across the country
  
• Now import and store unlimited number of photos on your personal space on the cloud
  
• Add your personal touch to gifts such as calendars, t-shirts, mugs, photobooks using photos, themes along with a personal message

India’s leading telecommunications company, Bharti Airtel today joined hands with Zoomin.com – India’s No.1 photo service, to announce the launch of ‘Airtel Photos’. This exclusive partnership enables Airtel broadband customers anywhere in India to import and store unlimited number of photos on their own personal space on the cloud.

Powered by Zoomin.com, Airtel Photos enables the user to import photo albums from Facebook or upload photos directly from their computer to their account. Users can store unlimited photos in their Airtel Photos account as storage is free. The Organizer- another feature unique to the service, allows to customers to work seamlessly across photo albums to create a customized collection of favourite folders. The service also enables customers to add a personal touch to gifts such as calendars, t-shirts, mugs, photobooks using photos, themes along with a personal message. They can choose from a range of themes, funky art clips and designed templates and add captions of their choice.
Whats more- the service does away with the hassle of credit/debit cards or even payment on delivery! Airtel Photos unique ‘Pay per Instance’ allows users to keep track of their orders that get reflected in their monthly postpaid bill.
According to Mr. Girish Mehta, Chief Marketing Officer, Telemedia Services, Bharti Airtel said, “The launch of Airtel Photos is in line with our commitment to enrich the lives of our customers with broadband. Airtel has always led the way in partnering industry leaders for bringing in innovative services for customers. By providing choice and convenience, Airtel Photos will enable our customers to cherish and celebrate life and relationships like never before.”
Sharing his thoughts on the partnership, Sunny Balijepalli, Founder & CEO, Zoomin.com said, “India is a visual culture with deep family bonds. Photos are perfect visual representation for the celebrations of those moments of magic every family experiences. We are delighted to partner Airtel, India’s premier telecommunications company, to empower its customers to celebrate their life’s moments with photo prints and the ability to express themselves through personalized gifts such as photobooks, mugs and t-shirts.”
Airtel Photo Print enables customers to choose from matte, gloss and luminous print finishes. Photo products available on Airtel Photos range from Rs. 65 to Rs. 595 inclusive of applicable taxes and delivery charges. For details on the complete product portfolio, customers can visit www.airtel.Zoomin.com. source

Nokia's push email services barred in India

Cellcos must block new pushmail offering until security requirements are satisfied.

 RIM's clashes with Indian authorities over email services that they cannot monitor have hit the headlines, but the BlackBerry maker is not the only firm in the spotlight. Microsoft, Skype and Google have their own ongoing negotiations about how far the government should be able to monitor and intercept mobile email and messaging. Now Nokia's new push email services have been barred until they can satisfy the requirements of the security agencies.

According to the Economic Times, the Ministry of Home Affairs has ordered mobile operators to bar Nokia's new offerings for now, and "not to launch Nokia's proposed pushmail/powermail service without putting in place monitoring facilities". This directive comes despite a compromise, reached in December, under which Nokia set up a server in India to help authorities monitor email and provide real time interception.

The issue is hugely serious for Nokia. While RIM is mainly risking the loss of future business, as 3G starts to take off in India, Nokia already makes substantial business from corporate and consumer email services, and has specifically created an offering for those without PCs, as part of its LifeTools family of apps for emerging markets. At the high end, Its E Series devices are the most used business phones in India and almost half of them are activated for push email, the service now under threat. This allows users to manage multiple email accounts via clients such as Yahoo, Gmail or Sify.

Meanwhile, the March 31 deadline for RIM to present a solution for BlackBerry Enterprise Services, which would satisfy the authorities, has passed with no apparent resolution. The arguments are taking place against a change in the law, which is broadening the legal meaning of telecoms and IT services. This will make it compulsory for operators to have systems in place to support authorized intercepts - based on telephone numbers, device identity, email IDs, IP addresses or keywords - by national security agencies on a real time basis.source