Dial E for extras

Mobile phones today open up a whole new world of exciting entertainment and information options, says Aarti Dua
So your mobile phone croons the opening bars of Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (KANK) every time it rings. Let’s get one thing straight: that’s kidstuff. On the other hand, you might be cucumber cool if you’ve downloaded the full song or if you are watching its music video on your mobile screen. Or how about watching the news channel on your phone? Or doing a web search?

The good old ringtone and SMS may still dominate mobile value-added services (VAS) in India, but there’s clearly more to mobile content than such vanilla fare. Would you like to watch short clips of the Miss World Contest this September? Or, more sophisticated fare? Yes, it’s all happening in the mobile content space. Says Mahesh Prasad, president, applications solution and content group, Reliance Infocomm, “The mobile is an anytime-anywhere device today and users are looking to do more than voice communication.”

Adds Sanjay Kapoor, joint president (mobility), Bharti Airtel, “Mobile content consumption has turned the corner in the Indian market.”

It’s not hard to understand why operators are pushing mobile content. India now has 105 million mobile subscribers and over 5 million new subscribers are signing up each month. But they are spending less on their phones, so the mobile companies need to persuade them to use more sophisticated — and costlier — services.

Airtel’s Kapoor estimates that the mobile content market has grown by 200 per cent over the last 18 months, and will double this year. Adds Pankaj Sethi, vice-president, value-added services, Tata Teleservices, “The pace at which customers are adopting content is accelerating rapidly.”

Improving handset and network capabilities are pushing content usage. Says Subho Ray, president, Internet & Mobile Association of India, “It helps that handset costs are becoming more affordable.”