02-02-2013, 03:05 PM
IDENTIFICATIN OF VAS NEEDS AND ITS UPTAKE IN CORPORATE SEGMENT
Executive Summary
Need for the study
The future scenario for the Indian telecom sector continues to be revenue generating, with an average of seven to eight million subscribers being added every month. India has crossed the 250 million mark with the addition of 8.53 million mobile subscribers in February 2008. With this, India is set to become the second largest wireless network in the world after China. When it comes to Tele-density in India- It is still far less than developed nations (India-24.63% and other developed nations it is 60% -80%). With a strong telecom regulator in TRAI and several and several experienced players the telecom sector is an important as well as promising growth area.
Value Added Services (VAS) is a solution to overcome the threat of declining ARPU (Average Revenue Per User). These services generate 18-20% of the total revenue to the telecom providers in India. This is primarily because of the reason that music mobile industry and other sources of entertainment such as games, alert subscriptions, GPRS enabled services are on the rise. Mobile Infotainment, gaming and email have now become the killer applications. Thus there is a vast world beyond voice.
Research Design:
A research design is the arrangement of conditions for collection and analysis of data in a manner that aims to combine relevance to the research purpose it constitutes the blueprint for collection, measurement and analysis of data. It is a plan that specifies the sources and the types of information relevant to the research problem. It also takes into consideration the time and cost budgets.
The Research Type followed in this project is Descriptive Research in which specific predictions, narration of facts and figures concerning individuals, group, or situations are gathered. It defines clearly what is to be measured along with adequate methods with a clear cut definition of population which is to be studied. The main aim is to get complete and accurate information; hence the procedure is carefully planned.
Explanation:
Opportunity - Decreasing ARPU, which is forcing telecom operators to lay emphasis on these services and seeing developers laughing their way to the bank. The ARPUs in India are amongst the lowest in the world, and the only hope for an increase in these numbers would be to provide the consumer a wide range of VAS i.e., Ringtones, wallpapers, m-comics, mooks ( mobile books), games, movies, videos, etc. As the average revenue per user decreases from voice drops, and voice becomes commoditized, Telecom Operators are increasingly looking at data as an additional revenue stream. The end users have also embraced VAS and it contributes a major part of the revenue. Thus Mobile VAS has become an important element in the growth of mobile telephony in India. Though the number of people going mobile is increasing, they use the bare minimum of services. Service providers are therefore looking at increasing their VAS revenues.
Conclusion
With the growth in consumption power, interests and applications of VAS the demand for the same is increasing. Also now developers are catching the pulse of the people, as in understanding their needs and developing applications to fulfill those needs. However, the only hindrance is getting pay out for it, out of the claws of OEM and operators. And the actual figure will surface when OEM and operators co-operate and give VAS as VAS rather than PIS (Price intensive services).