Indian Telecos are still crying over the revenue loss they are incurring due to the steep decline in SMS users. The uproar over the move to levy extra charges on the Instant Messaging services didn't go well as TRAI trampled the suggestion and said that it would be detrimental to the growth of the Mobile Data services.
The Indian Online scenario is bustling with several applications and products that need an Online Ecosystem to breathe. The total number of Internet users in India stand at a staggering 155 million. The trends help us predict that in the upcoming three years the Mobile Internet subscriber base will double to nearly 480 million.
The research* also says that the number of people transacting online will triple unlocking a whole new level of revenue potentiality to the Telecos. The Indian Telecom sector is gearing up to reach an expected $35 billion in revenues and considering the fact that the Mobile Data revenues are growing at a whopping 70% per year accounting for a major chunk of the revenue.
Google India’s VP and Managing Director of sales and operations said “Indian Telecos have the opportunity to significantly expand the pie by catering to unmet demand, in online music, video and online recharges. As per our Market research 73% of Mobile data consumers would be willing to spend more time online if more entertainment content were available in an engaging format. Similarly 70% of Internet users have not yet tried online recharges but are willing to try because of the inconvenience they face with traditional channels”.
The Mobile Data ecosystem is going to bloom and it won’t be a surprise it starts earning a greater chunk of revenues to the Telecos than the traditional Voice services. It will be interesting to see how the Telecos will encash from this opportunity and how well the customers will be benefitted.
*Refers to an offline research conducted by Nielsen in India on behalf of Google: 3452 respondents surveyed by across 14 cities in India including Metros Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Tier 1 cities Chandigarh, Patna, Indore, Kochi and Tier 2 cities Jalandhar, Mysore, Bhavnagar, Bhubaneswar:
