Telecom Lead India: The Value Added Services (VAS)
market in India is going through a tough transformational phase. Low
penetration of 3G services, lack of awareness among consumers, technology intimidation,
regulations and bad service models are hindering the growth of the industry.

 

Sumit Sardana, director-sales of OnMobile says that use
of localized or vernacular languages have not been adopted widely by the VAS
players and developers, thus hindering the growth of the industry.

 

Moreover, Sardana suggests that an intermediary
technology platform for technology aggregation is required to make VAS industry
flourish. He says that the VAS industry has been lacking co-operation among
developers, VAS players and service operators.

 

Zubin Dubash, chief strategy officer of Onward Mobility,
India’s first offline app store, says that only 8 percent of the total mobile
subscriber base has GPRS/3G services activated, which restricts the growth of
VAS services.

 

Furthermore, he adds that discovery of applications and
lack of post sale supports are other reasons of low uptake of VAS services.

 

Industry players believe that accurate pricing of
applications will set-up the consumer market and for that there is a need to inject
right expectations consumer minds through promotion and pre/post sale support.

 

In order to revolutionize the VAS industry, SC Sharma,
general manager of VAS, BSNL said that shift from modular content selling to
services is required. He added that smart devices, better connectivity, user
interface (UI) and Location-based services will jointly drive the industry in
coming years.

 

Industry experts reckon that interoperability among
handsets and carrier along with browser-based applications will drive the industry
growth.

 

Industry analysts note that uncertain
telecom market conditions, the recent TRAI guidelines along with lack of RoI
for new products and lack of support from operators are forcing mobile VAS
players from launching new and innovative products.

 

VAS market to reach Rs 26,000 crore this year

According to a study conducted by IAMAI and IMRB, the
Indian Mobile VAS market is expected to reach Rs 26,000 crore by the end of
2012 and Rs 33,280 crore by 2013, growing at 28 percent.

 

In the last three years, the average MVAS spent per month
has risen by Rs 9 to stand at Rs 24 per month in 2012.

 

Danish Khan
[email protected]