January 2010

Devices Acer aspires to be one of the top-5 mobile handset vendors in the country in another 3 years – there is a plan to set up their own factory too in India. Videocon plans to launch as many as 15 new handsets in the next 2 months – they will be available across India by next month. Applications/Services IMIMobile has created a white-labeled solution called Davinci Social, for mobile social networking. One97 also has a similar solution called Oc2Ps. Guess managed service solution providers need to continuously produce innovative solutions which the operators can easily license and launch A video streaming service called ‘ Eros Bollywood ’ has been added to the Ovi Store. By the way, the free Ovi maps is available in 84 cities across India . I heard a friend cribbing that he is not able to get the free version for his Xpress Music device – he needs to upgrade the firmware for that and even that is not possible for Indian consumers. Is that true? 2ergo , a UK based company, is set to launch ‘location based services’ in India. From what I understand, it would be a B2B product. Operators Virgin Mobile plans to invest 500 crores in its operations in the country and has a modest ambition of achieving 10% of the youth segment. Such niche focus may actually help reduce churn?

Infibeam.com is India’s biggest online bookstore with a selection of more than 40 lac books and 1 lac plus eBooks. Today, Infibeam.com has unveiled India’s very own ebook reader ” Pi “. The launch of Pi follows a series of launches from Infibeam.com that included a Piunified product search and an eBooks store . With its own reading device Pi, Infibeam hopes to change the reading style of book lovers in India for good. Speaking on the future of Infibeam Pi , Mr. Vishal Mehta, CEO & Founder, Infibeam.com said, “Infibeam.com has always believed in listening to customers. Many of our customers wanted eBooks and we recently launched an eBook store with selection of more than 1 lac titles for instant downloads. Today, we are proud to introduce Pi, India’s first reading device. With Pi, we’ve focused on the most important features for an eBook reader which includes readability, low cost, lightweight, local language support and the ability to listen to music while reading. We will continue to upgrade features on Pi and on expanding our eBooks selection. We are working towards a future where newspapers, magazines, books from local publishers, digital content in regional languages, textbooks, education material and more will be available on Pi.” Infibeam Pi is small, sleek, and lightweight with 10 mm thickness and a weight of just 180 gm. With the 6″ E Ink (R) display, reading an eBook on Pi, gives the reader an experience akin to the one while reading a paper book. The 8-level gray scale with no backlit display provides a glare-free reading experience everywhere. The device can store up to 500 standard ebooks in its internal memory of 512MB and also has a SD card memory expansion slot that supports cards upto 4GB. Pi comes with useful features such as bookmarking, horizontal & vertical views and the most important one i.e. support for most Indian official languages. Users also have the option to upload their own content such as documents to Pi from their PC through a USB cable and read them anywhere. One can also choose between four different font sizes and the content will auto-scale to fit the screen. Ability to listen to music and games such as Sudoku provide additional value for money. Pi has an introductory pre-order price of Rs. 9,999/- with a booking amount of Rs. 999/-. The devices will start shipping on 22nd February. The sales package includes Pi Reading Device, micro-USB 2.0 Cable, AC Adapter, Quick Start Guide and Earphones. User Manual, Quick Start Guide and sample eBooks are available in digital form on the device. Infibeam.com will also provide a 1-year exclusive warranty and support for the eBook reader. Most ebook readers available in Indian market have to be imported and come with the hassles of custom clearances and lack of support. With Pi, people can take advantage of the hassle-free buying experience on Infibeam.com and be assured of great Infibeam.com customer service. Buying eBooks will not only help save money, but will also save some trees and preserve our green earth. Pre-order your Pi today at a booking amount of Rs. 999/-. About Infibeam.com: Infibeam.com owns and operates an e-commerce retail portal www.infibeam.com as well as customized products portal www.picsquare.com. The company also provides e-commerce and interactive marketing services to brands, retailers and media companies in India and internationally. The company’s technology services include e-commerce engine with a set of configurable features that enables Web store functionality, such as product presentation, merchandising, shopping cart, and checkout. It also offers Web store management tools to manage the Web stores administration, product and catalog content, and reporting; Web infrastructure and managed hosting; order management and processing; and reporting and analytics services. In addition, the company provides fulfilment services, customer care services, interactive marketing services, online advertising and design services. Infibeam.com was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

New Delhi-based 2ergo, a provider of mobile enabling technology will launch location-based services in India by next six months, Ramesh Krishnan, chief operating officer, 2ergo told Telecom Yatra. Location-based service (LBS) is a form of marketing and communication that uses location-tracking technology in mobile networks to target consumers with location-specific advertising on their mobile devices. Speaking

According to Industry experts who congregated at *7th VAS INDIA 2010*, the Indian Value Added Services (VAS) industry is expected  to touch a turnover of over Rs. 21,000 Crore by the year 2013. The event was organised by Bharat Exhibitions at Taj Lands End, Mumbai. Mr. Subhash Dhar, Member Executive Council and Group Head – Sales and Marketing, Infosys* quoted in his keynote speech that till now Internet was considered a radical phenomenon but now the Mobile is all set to create a similar revolution. Mobile Value Added Services are about to create a huge buzz in the market for the masses.”The point was supported by *Mr. Uday Sodhi, Chief Executive Officer, Balaji Telefilms* “The current Average Revenue per User (*ARPU*) lingers around 8-9% however by the end of this year we shall see a rise to about 12-14% with an extensive increase to nearly Rs. 11,000 Crore.” “The future of businesses will be driven by broader digital engagement with their consumers and will act as a catalyst in the future economy” according to *Mr. Dhar*. He further added that all ecosystem players will have to join hands to bring Mobile Value Added Services to the masses. With over more than 500 Million mobile phone users in the country, penetration to various areas with multilingual diversities and providing vast content like games, applications, astrology, Mobile banking etc. and related services is a challenge which has to be accomplished. The emphasis was on the 3G/4G aspect and providing faster access like broadband availability to take MVAS further. *Mr. Shyam Mardikar, Sr. Vice President – Networks, Bharti Airtel Limited* said “Telecom is a mature business and the consumer is choosy, quality of services needs to be refined, optimised and manifestation of existing services has to be done”. *Shri. SS Sirohi, Principal General Manager & Head, VAS, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited* spoke about mobile banking transactions focus on volumes and diverse content provisioning, mobile advertising, Location based services like GPRS which are in their initial stages. Nearly 7.5 Lakh customers are using 3G BSNL, currently available in 300 cities and the target is to spread it to 700 cities by July 2010. 50 Million ringtones are downloaded every month. The Indian Premier League shall be merging with Youtube and the cricket match can be viewed from the cell phone with a staggering 36 camera view options. The speed of 3G is 3.5Mbps if the download speed is enhanced or the bandwidth is increased, user will have an enriched experience by downloading movies, games, and utilities at a faster rate. He added, new customers, new platforms, new generators, new operators are joining the market everyday so the opportunity is tremendous. The MVAS will bring about a change in lifestyle of the common man according to *Mr. Lloyd Mathias, President & Chief Marketing Officer, Tata Teleservices Limited,* he elaborated his point by giving an example of a fisherman from Kerala who has to sell his fish to the dealer at the rate at which the dealer pays him, however with the introduction of MVAS, he will be able to get the best deal available. The *chief guest* in the conference *Mr. RN Prabhakar, Member, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, (TRAI)* had a similar opinion and focussed on how MVAS has become so important and innovative for the telecom operators with the intense competition bringing down the ARPU and the tariff. Finally he concluded the speech saying “MVAS will bring about a huge change and improve the living standards for all the classes and the market is just ripe for bringing about and to be a part of the change”.