Telecom Lead India: Growing at 28 percent, 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.
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. As of March 2012, there
were 48 million mobile Internet users in India.
Conventional MVAS services like Astrology, Bollywood,
Cricket with CRBT, Ringtones, SMS Updates etc continue to dominate the market
with 63 percent share.
Services such as mHealth, mEducation, mFun has garnered
37 percent market share.
With over 919 million mobile subscribers in the industry,
the industry is set to thrive further. The telecommunication industry gets Rs
96 ARPU from GSM subscriber, whereas CDMA subscriber brings Rs 73 ARPU.
According to a study conducted by IAMAI and IMRB, the
MVAS is now 27 percent of the ARPU. Despite, falling ARPUs over the years, the
study reveals that per user spent on MVAS has gone up by 28 percent in the last
one year.
The dependency on Voice services is reducing and to
increase the ARPU, the emphasis must be put on Data services such as MVAS.
The current Indian MVAS market can be gauged into two
categories that are Current MVAS and Emerging MVAS. The current MVAS category
covers 63 percent of the total industry, whereas emerging MVAS covers the
remaining share of 37 percent.
The current MVAS consists of CRBT (27 percent) and SMS
Based application (17 percent). On the other hand, the emerging MVAS consist
mostly of Mobile Apps (10 percent) and Games (8 percent).
Mobile internet users in India are growing at the rate of
17 percent, which offers great business potential to companies.
In order to augment the MVAS growth further, affordable
mobile devices and cheaper data subscription rates will play a crucial role in
the market.
Despite challenges mobile VAS set to grow powered by 3G and
rural expansion in 2012
Recently, Sunil Dutt, managing director, Research in
Motion India said that the growth in MVAS will come from 3G roll outs and
expansion of mobile services in rural areas
editor@telecomlead.com