“Determining successful strategies to identify the impact of mobile content to generate ARPU”
Key themes discussed at this Summit
- What is the size of the Indian mobile content and services market?
- What are the key applications and content that Indian users are willing to pay for?
- What is 'recyclable' content? How can they re-generate and increase ARPU?
- What is the major role of mobile operators in delivering mobile content?
- What is the major missed opportunity of the mobile operators to date?
- Grabbing the 3G opportunity: regulation, network deployment, business models
- Revenue sharing models between carriers, aggregators and content owners
- What is the off-portal content’s effect on the mobile telecom industry?
- How advertising can help make content more affordable for customers?
- Analyzing revenue generating models in mobile internet, advertising, games, LBS, entertainment & banking
- How much of an issue is usability and quality & how does it affect user experience?
- Strategies on boosting the penetration of mobile VAS usage in smaller cities and rural areas.
- Positioning yourself in light of new market entries
- Current situations and future predictions
- Evaluation of the mobile solutions employed in today’s market
- How much will consumers pay for mobile TV entertainment and what services do consumers want on their devices?
- NK Goyal, President, CMAI (Communication & Manufacturing Association of India)
- Suresh Jayaraju, Vice President, Head - New Age VAS, 3G Services, Reliance
- Zubin Jimmy Dubash, Vice President VAS, Tata Teleservices
- Shyam Ramamurthy, Senior Director - Media Engineering, Yahoo
- Chandan Ghosh, Head – Global Wholesale & Carrier Business (Voice & Data), Aircel
- Sunzay Passari, Vice President - VAS & Devices, Essar Teleholdings & BPL Mobile Communications
- TV Ramachandran, Resident Director, Regulatory Affairs & Govt. Relations, Vodafone
- Ravi Gandhi, Vice President Corporate Regulatory, Airtel
- Rajat Mukarji, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Idea Cellular
- Vamshi Reddy, CEO & Founder, Apalya Technologies
- Keith Curran, CEO, Steadings Group
- R.N.Prabhakar, Former Member, TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India)
- Joy Bhattacharya, Team Director, Kolkatta Knight Riders
- Sukanta Dey, Former Emerging Business President, Tata Teleservices
- Anuraj Gambhir, Chief Dreamer, Xpert Media Technology
- Amit Dev, Co-Founder & Jt. Managing Director, ThreeG TV
- Kunal Bahl, Founder, SnapDeal
- Deepak Halan, Group Business Director, IMRB
- Angad Bhatia, CEO, Xpert Media Technology
- Anil Prakash, Secretary General, IPTV India Forum
- T.R. Dua, Deputy Director General, COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India)
- Naresh Ajwani, President, CCAOI (Cyber Cafe Association of India)
- Vijay Madan, Former Executive Director & Chairman Board of Directors, C- DOT (Centre for Development of Telematics)
- S.N. Zindal, Chief Research & Development Officer, BITS Pilani (Former Director General, ACTO)
Virtue Insight’s Mobile Content Summit 2011 was abuzz with excitement as twitterati began to swarm the event with a flurry of tweets since morning, enlivening the atmosphere much before speakers graced the stage. Tweets from the organizers and event partners started pouring in the huge screen near the podium, facilitated by the Conference App by Hazel Media, Mobility partners of the event. The event kickstarted with the opening remarks of NK Goyal, President CMAI (Communication & Manufacturing Association of India), who chaired the morning session. Goyal, a telecom veteran with a rich experience spanning more than two decades brought out the Indian telecom conundrum in perspective when he pointed out at the sector’s high profitability despite having the lowest rates in the world. He requested the telecom executives present in the conference to bring awareness about the health hazards involved in mobile phones. He also stressed on the need to assure customers of minimum bandwidth in 3G networks.
Shyam Ramamurthy, Senior Director- Media Engineering, Yahoo in the morning’s first address talked of Yahoo’s mission to create deeply personal digital experience. He pointed out the changing dynamics of consumer experience through connected devices. He predicted the immanence of HTML5 as the standard for providing superior experience. He showcased Yahoo’s efforts with Content Optimization Relevance Engine (CORE), the largest content cloud in the world, and, Live Stand, recently launched at World Mobile Congress. In response to a question about Yahoo’s India activities, Shyam articulated Yahoo’s plans to funnel raw and curated content with Indian media houses.
The session was followed by a thought provoking panel discussion on the challenges and opportunities in containing the content. Chandan Ghosh, Head Operations – Carriers and Enterprise Business, Aircel reaffirmed marketers’ favorite truism about content being the undisputed king. Anuraj Gambhir, Chief Dreamer, Xpert Media Technology, retorted with the much needed importance of context, in a country like India with innumerable languages and dialects. Context is indeed the king, he asserted. Rajat Mukarji, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Idea Cellular, addressed the issue of technology advances, with the 3G coming to fore almost a decade after its launch in the rest of the world. He asserted that businesses would have floundered had it been launched earlier without the adequate support of current infrastructure. He averred that with voice being commoditised, miniaturisation and digitization of content didn’t go well despite a good take off. He pointed its reason towards the experience not being commensurate with the expectations of the bigger screen the consumer had very well got acquainted with.
Abraham Joseph, CEO&Founder, Device Management Forum, brought the international perspective with interesting insights from the experiences of France telecom. He described the nature of challenges that emerge depending on the maturity level of the markets. The audience pointed out to the panel on the need to include the less targeted consumers belonging to the older generation. Rajat addressed the audience to understand the weight of expectations as the telecom players are currently only in the first wave of expansion. It was impossible to address to consumers’ preferences in the first wave itself.
The panel discussion was followed by a session on the evolution of content by Vamshi Reddy, CEO & Founder, Apalya Technologies. He urged on the need to build snackable content which would be bundled on demand to the consumer. He addressed the developers to build in simplicity by hiding complexity. He dwelt upon the content economics and focussed on the implications of acquisition, milking and retention of content, across the consumer lifecycle.
The seminar shifted towards the security aspects with a presentation on overcoming the IT and Information security risks in the Mobile sector by Col. Sandeep Sudan, Head-Security Practice, Mahindra SSG. Col. Sandeep presented various studies related to security conducted by McAffee and pointed out vulnerabilities in mobile channel such as IMEI duplicity, Sim Swoop Scam and Denial of Service. Cell phone malware has risen by 46 % in 2010 compared to previous year. He presented the Risk Matrix which mitigates the vulnerabilities through domains of technology, process and environment. He also pointed out a recent case of SIM Card fraud where within 24 hours of movement of the SIM to Nepal, the Indian telecom provider had to incur a loss of 10 crores INR.
The post lunch session began with the opening remarks by Deepak Halan, Group Business Director, IMRB. He pointed at the excessive fragmentation of the telecom market with far too many content providers. He also contrasted the Indian telecom scenario in the international context where telecom operators dominate the revenues, unlike other countries, such as China, where content providers dominate the major chunk of the revenues.
In a refreshing change of discussions amidst the pressing concerns of the telecom market, Mr. Keith Curran, CEO, Steadings Group (UK) presented a very thought provoking session on the future of networks, personalized to the level of the individual who wields the control in today’s digital world. Aptly titled, My Life, Keith Curran walked the audience through a world of possibilities when the current push approach to business transitions to pull, handing over the reins back to the consumer. He addressed the importance of grappling the dynamics of a typical hockey stick revenue curve with persisent efforts to reduce churn and sustain growth in a market that has not yet been saturated. Inorder to increase the ARPUs it was essential to shift the current mindset from Value Added services to Essential Added services. He highlighted the dimensions of the My Life starting from My Number, where customers could opt for preferred numbers which would strongly resonate with their identity to My Payments and My Convenience. He also envisioned the creation of My Profile which would encompass the entire digital identity of the user and establish a habit monitor that could target the right product based on the pattern of habits. This profile would be empowered by a secure system tagged to the mobile phone of the customer, validated by a PIN across the wide spectrum of networks. He averred that the centralized, secured control of the consumer’s digital footprint, facilitated by My ID, would redefine segmentation in its truest sense by optimizing to the customer’s choice to the highest granularity. The audience pointed out the concerns of centralized security, drawing parallels with the Unique Identity project being carried out by the Indian Government.
This was followed by a panel discussion on Targeted Multi Channel Content which would bring about additional revenues. Kunal Behl, Founder, Snap Deal showcased his firm’s recommendation engine which helps in pushing coupons to the customers depending on the contextual significance. He also highlighted the fatigue involved in the traditional selling of the regular advertising content. Keith brought in interesting examples from UK where operators offered free calling plans with specific advertising for callers. Deepak stressed on the need to explore innovative business models. To a question on the current power relationships between the telecom providers, he pointed out the Indian business context in perspective where the telecom players have more muscle power than the media houses which provided content. Kunal contrasted the shifting preference towards performance advertising vis a vis brand advertising. Keith also explored the possibility of reverse advertising based on the habit monitor tracked by the consumer’s digital foot print.
Amit Singh from Tata Docomo presented their strategic approach to mobile content with the addition of EFG E-Education, F-Facebooking, G-Games to the traditional ABCD A- Astrology, B- Bollywood, C-Cricket, D-Devotional of Mobile Content. He also showcased Tata Docomo’s successful initiatives such as Prayers, Rock, Paper & Scissor game and Social Networking in bringing the common man to the VAS Ecosystem. He classified the content into fresh and hygiene content with the former focusing on differentiated content and the latter focusing on hygiene content across the Mobile Content Networks.
The summit then shifted towards the regulator’s perspective with a panel discussion comprising eminent personalities from TRAI, C-DOT and regulatory affairs of telecom companies. The panelists focused on the regulator’s roles across contentious issues such as IPR, User Abuse and Pricing of services in the context of User Generated Content. The big question over whether content should need regulation was also raised by the panelists. With the barriers between broadcasting and telecom getting reduced with digital convergence at different levels, panelists debated over the existence of independent regulations demarcating broadcasting and telecom. They also brought to light several regulations where networks are mandated with information security providers. Various challenges that have emerged in the open source platforms such as Android where it becomes increasingy difficult to take any action on the concerned parties incase of any malpractice were addressed. In response to questions from the audience about the misuse of customers’ privacy through telemarketers, the panelists highlighted the various penalty measures that are being levied upon telemarketing firms. They also pointed the regulatory distinction imposed on the numbers by limiting the specific telemarketing numbers to 70 series.
The final panel discussion of the day focused on the challenges and benefits of providing a great mobile user experience with the best content. The panelists focused on the value and content being a function of depth, breadth and height of experience. They also addressed the infrastructure issues that stand in the way of providing mobile experience.
The event concluded with networking drinks as the delegates thanked the Virtue Insight team for putting their efforts in making Mobile Content Summit a grand success.
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