Mobile Stats from Google India MD
Category: Uncategorized | 1 Comment | Posted on November 28, 2011
Some useful numbers coming from Google India MD, Rajan Anandan
- 40% of search queries for Google India comes from mobile phones as against US (14), UK (6) and Russia (11)
- 67% of ecommerce in India happens in mobile and consumer appliances
- 50 million mobile Internet users in India
- $500 million worth mobile phones will be brought in India this year
- Smartphones growth in India is currently at 56% CAGR
- In 2011, 21 million smartphones are being sold in India
Source: Alootechie
Netcore acquires Ravience, a mobile marketing services provider
Category: General | 1 Comment | Posted on October 24, 2011
Ravience Digital, the mobile marketing technology startup I had founded 3 years ago has been acquired by Netcore Solutions. I have worked with tech entrepreneur Rajesh Jain for over 10 years, in his earlier venture IndiaWorld and then at Netcore.
The announcement that was made in this regard last week:
Digital real-time communications company Netcore Solutions today said that it has acquired Ravience, a Mumbai-based mobile marketing services provider, for an undisclosed sum. Ravience is focused on helping brands engage with their customers using its multi-modal response management suite ‘Responage’.
Since its incorporation in 2008, Ravience has achieved several customer wins at leading brands and digital agencies, helping Brand Managers in analysing and optimizing campaign responses generated through various mediums like Mobile Web, PC Web, SMS, Email and Voice.
The platform integrates various stages of digital campaigns – starting from media, visitor management, response management and finally lead management, thus filtering higher quality leads and identifying their sources.
Responage also allows rapid creation of mobile websites which are compatible across handsets, visitor analytics and validation of responses. Veerchand Bothra, founder of Ravience, said, “Usage of mobile-web is exploding with increasing penetration of smartphones, launch of 3G and aggressive pricing of data plans by mobile operators. Ravience’s platform helps enterprise customers convert clicks and responses into consumers on the mobile platform.”
This is Netcore’s second acquisition in 18 months after it acquired a majority interest in internet portal company, Greynium, which operates OneIndia, India’s largest collection of local language portals. Netcore’s Chief Executive Officer, Girish Nair, said. “Ravience complements Netcore’s offerings across SMS, Email and Web channels, and its closed loop digital campaign management platform. Upon integration, the Netcore-Ravience platform will be a unique end-to-end offering for enterprises to create, manage and enhance digital campaigns.”
Netcore Solutions is one of India’s largest digital real-time communications companies, with its email and SMS solutions being used by over 2,000 enterprises.
Tips for Coping with the new NCPR/NDNC Regime
Category: Enterprise | 1 Comment | Posted on October 10, 2011
Some tips we had compiled for clients of Ravience, to help them cope with the new NCPR/DND regime. Would love to know how other companies are dealing with this stringent DND regime.
TIP #1
If a user (customer) is registered under DND, and wants to receive messages from your company, he/she can be instructed to opt-in for the Partially Blocked Category i.e. stoppage of all commercial Calls/SMS except SMS from one of the opted preferences mentioned below.
For ‘partially blocked category’, user can send sms START with one or multiple options from the list of seven categories.
There are at present following preferences to choose from:
- Banking/Insurance/Financial Products/Credit Cards
- Real Estate
- Education
- Health
- Consumer goods and automobiles
- Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT
- Tourism & Leisure
For example: To receive messages relating to only Health products, then send sms START 4 to 1909. Similarly, for receiving messages relating to Education, send sms START 3 to 1909.
On successful registration, user will receive an SMS confirming exercised options and a Unique Registration Number within 24 hrs. The registration will be effective within 7 days of placing the request with the service provider.
TIP #2
Now that a Sender-ID cannot be used for branding, here is one idea to help the user identify the company/brand which has sent the message.
The first word of the message can be of the company’s/brand’s name. Most of phones show a preview panel in the inbox screen, in which first few characters of the message are visible to the user without opening the message.
Image example showing how the user (receiver) sees it:
TIP #3
To check whether a number is DND registered or not go to this site.
http://nccptrai.gov.in/nccpregistry/search.misc
Note:
Regarding the 100 SMS / day limit: It is only applicable for P2P i.e limit of sending 100 SMS from one phone to another. It is not applicable for A2P i.e Application to Person.
MoMo Mumbai: Opportunities in HTML5 for Mobiles
Category: Events, momo | No Comments | Posted on September 22, 2011
HTML5 became a hot topic in 2010, after Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs stated that with the development of HTML5, Adobe Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content.
More than 2.1 billion mobile devices will have HTML5 browsers by 2016, up from 109 million in 2010. Much of this growth will be thanks to Apple’s and Android’s massive support for the HTML5.
HTML5 provides mobile device users richer web applications and improved usability. The new features of HTML5 standardize the use cases and technologies that are common in smartphone-optimized mobile web applications. HTML5 adds many new syntactical features, which are designed to make it easy to include and handle multimedia and graphical content on the web without having to resort to proprietary plugins and APIs.
In this Mobile Monday Mumbai event, we will explore the potential opportunities with HTML5 and learn about developing HTML 5 mobile web apps.
Agenda:
- 10.15 am: Registrations
- 10.45 am: Presentation by Asif Ali
- 12.00 pm: Group Discussion
- 12.30 pm: Networking Lunch
Where:
Komli Media
Crystal Plaza, 158, CST Road,
Kalina, Santacruz East,
Mumbai – 400098.
When:
10.30 am – 1 pm
Saturday, 24th September 2011
RSVP:
http://momomum201109.eventbrite.com/
About the Speaker:
Asif Ali, Komli Mobile
Asif Ali heads Mobile Products at Komli after Komli’s acquisition of ZestADZ. Previously, he has been CEO of ZestADZ since early 2010. In addition, Asif Ali was one of the founders of ZestADZ, along with Nat Natraj and Terry Uppal, in 2007. In his initial role at ZestADZ, Asif served as the co-Founder and CTO of the company, eventually transitioning into the role of CEO leading sales and strategy in 2010.
Asif is a technology entrepreneur with more than 13 years of experience in mobile and enterprise solutions. Previously, Asif co-founded a Malaysia based enterprise and wireless services company (ThreeSixty Technologies). He lead the team that built and launched Malaysia’s first m-commerce platform powering SMS Top-up solutions for leading banks and telcos such as Public Bank, Maxis & Celcom.
About the Sponsor:
Komli Media is Asia Pacific’s leading digital media technology platform. Komli Media provides marketers with innovative solutions across brand marketing, performance marketing, mobile, search, social media, and video. ViziSense, India’s leading online audience and ad measurement platform is powered by Komli Media technology.
ZestADZ is a leading global mobile advertising marketplace, delivering 5 billion mobile ad impressions each month with active operations in over 20 key markets. ZestADZ delivers value through mobile analytics, highly targeted advertising and local advertising in key markets.
MoMo Mumbai: Social Games & Apps with mig33
Category: Events, momo | No Comments | Posted on August 16, 2011
Be a witness to a tectonic shift in MoMo Mumbai’s schedule. Mobile Monday Mumbai is set to become Telecom Tuesday Mumbai. Well, almost. For the first time since birth of MoMo Mumbai chapter in 2006, the inviolable Monday fixture of MoMo Mumbai will take place on a Tuesday. Thanks to Bhagwan Krishna and Janmashtami, we have shifted the August ’11 event to Tuesday, 23rd August. So don’t miss the chance to experience Mobile Monday on a Tuesday.
MoMo Mumbai invites you for launch of mig33 Developer Program in India.
This means great things for game developers! So join us as we unlock virtual power with you, as we show you how to connect and monetize your social games and apps with mig33, one of the world’s largest mobile-first communities and a mobile audience of more than 50 million committed users on its platform.
Agenda:
- 6.30 pm: Registrations
- 7.00 pm: Presentation by Chris Chandler
- 7.45 pm: Group Discussion
- 8.15 pm: Networking Dinner
Where:
Plateau Hall
Club Peninsula,
Peninsula Corporate Park
Lower Parel West, Mumbai.
When:
6.30 pm – 9 pm
Tuesday, 23rd August 2011
RSVP:
http://momomum201108.eventbrite.com/
About the Speaker:
Chris Chandler, VP – Business Development, spearheads mig33’s expansion across mobile-first markets worldwide, including India, South Africa and Indonesia. He is responsible for growing mig33′s customer base and further aligns mig33 with industry partners. He joined mig33 from Microsoft Corporation’s Consumer & Online Division. Chris also heads the MoMo Singapore Chapter and is deeply involved with the mobile community across the globe.
About the Sponsor:
mig33 is the world’s largest mobile-first social entertainment service, connecting over 50 million registered members around the world with chat and entertainment every day, and hosting a fast-growing virtual economy. Launched in late 2005, mig33 is backed by Silicon Valley venture firms Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures and DCM, GREE, Inc. and many others.
Missed Call as a Response Tool
Category: Enterprise | 1 Comment | Posted on July 1, 2011
We are increasingly seeing adoption of “Missed Calls” as a enquiry / response tool. Two recent large-scale public campaigns have used Missed Call Enquiry.
Ramdev Baba’s anti-corruption drive was the first public campaign which used a landline number (02233081122) to garner support for their cause. As per one of their SMS updates, they received tens of lakh hits on that number.
Today’s DNA has a front-page story on use of Missed Call Enquiry by Anna Hazare’s India Against Corruption (IAC) campaign. Anna’s campaign number (02261550789) received over 1 crore hits out of which 76.83 lakh were unique numbers. The missed call enquiry for this campaign was powered by my professional alma-mater Netcore Solutions.
On April 5, when Hazare started his fast-unto-death at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, organisers requested the public to give a missed call on 022-61550789 to register their support. “By June 28, we got over one crore missed calls of which 76.83 lakh were unique missed calls, all different numbers and no repetition,” said Kunal Dixit of Netcore Solutions Private Limited, who is handling this scheme for the IAC…
According to data, the highest number of missed calls came from the 2G scam-embroiled Tamil Nadu (including Puducherry) region with 16.41 lakh calls followed by Maharashtra-Goa region (including Mumbai) with 15.15 lakh.
A 5 year old post on mobilepundit.com says that around 25% of all calls on telco networks were missed calls. These missed calls are used as signals for P2P communication.
Many companies are beginning to offer Missed Call Enquiry as a P2A (Person-to-Application) tool. My company Ravience Digital also offers such a tool, not only as an out of the box enquiry tool but also as a programmable platform through APIs. To demonstrate this, today morning we integrated Twitter with Missed Calls. India Against Corruption’s Twitter channel @janlokpal can now be followed using Missed Calls.
Give a missed call to 022-39386812 and in return you will receive the latest post from @janlokpal. All this at no cost to the user, even while roaming.
Psychology, History & Sociology
Category: General Gyan | No Comments | Posted on June 28, 2011
Dave Winer is a tech blogger whose scripting.com blog has been on my blogroll / reading list since 10 years now. He is the co-creator of the RSS format, widely used to syndicate blogs. Dave is a rockstar for me.
His recent podcast discusses whether “Arts” subjects like Pyschology and History are practical career investments or not.
Utility of Psychology is not difficult to explain; especially to HR and Sales people.
Psychology is certainly a practical skill-based class. Like it or not you’re going to spend the rest of your life dealing with people, and being a person, so you might as well know what makes humans go.
One of my interest areas is History. How did we get to the present and what can we learn from the past in order to build our future.
History? That’s the study of macro-level psychology. Why do humans, collectively, do the crazy things we do. The most tragic thing we do, btw, is to repeat mistakes of the past. So if you think you’re not at an advantage if you understand history, it’s actually a way to get a head start on life. But only if you plan to be partly responsible for what your generation does. If all you want to do is watch TV, play video games, eat and breed, I guess you can skip history.
Business History is particularly fascinating. For example, corporation as a business entity is accepted as a natural part of our life today. But it was not that way, as recently as 150 years ago. An incredible documentary called The Corporation
150 years ago, the business corporation was a relatively insignificant institution. Today, it is all-pervasive. Like the Church, the Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, the corporation is today’s dominant institution. This documentary examines the nature, evolution, impacts, and possible futures of the modern business corporation. Initially given a narrow legal mandate, what has allowed today’s corporation to achieve such extraordinary power and influence over our lives?
Dave reminds social media junkies that there’s more to read than Facebook and Twitter status updates. But with over thousand “friends and followers” sending hazaar updates, tweets, sms – where’s the time to read meaningful long literary texts.
And it helps to have a common base of literature that we’ve all read, so we can tell each other stories and have some idea of what we’re all talking about. Maybe these days all you need to know you can get from watching YouTube videos and reading your friends Facebook updates. But if that’s what you’re into, you’re not going to be very interesting to converse with. So the people who have something to say probably won’t seek you out.
Would add Sociology to the list of must-learn subjects in college. Read The Tipping Point
It would help in creating an all-round understanding of the world, if elementary knowledge of subjects like Sociology, Economics and Pyschology is provided to college students of all streams.
Post Event: MoMo Mumbai – Maximizing Your App’s Profitability
Category: momo | No Comments | Posted on May 31, 2011
We had a great session with Bill Scott of GetJar yesterday at MoMo Mumbai.
With more than 80 registrations, 50+ participants from Ad agencies, Ad Networks, Media companies, App Development companies, Telcos, VAS companies attended the event.
You can view and download Bill’s presentation from here:
http://goo.gl/yJW9M
Few pictures from the event. If you have taken any pictures at the event yesterday, please share them so that they can be uploaded to the MoMo Mumbai album.
http://goo.gl/LnVHP
For online professional networking and discussions, please join the Linkedin group of MoMo Mumbai.
http://goo.gl/VsqiE
If you are Tweeting about Mobile Monday Mumbai, please use the hashtag #MoMoMumbai. The official Twitter channel is:
http://twitter.com/#!/momomumbai
MoMo Mumbai: Maximizing Your App’s Profitability
Category: Uncategorized | 1 Comment | Posted on May 26, 2011
Bill Scott, SVP Business Development at GetJar, is visiting India. Bill will share his thoughts with the Mobile Monday Mumbai community on Monday, May 30, 2011.
Session Abstract:
Only 13 percent of app users pay for the apps they download. In order to reach the most consumers, developers are finding that it’s best to offer their app for free. But, of course developers need to make a living too, so how do you make money from your app without charging for it? Bill Scott, SVP of Sales & Business Development at GetJar, will share the industry’s best practices for app monetization and some more creative ways to make a living off of your app.
About Bill Scott:
Bill is VP Sales & Business Development where he is responsible for all customer interface and partnerships. He joined the mobile data industry in 2000, as VP Latin America for Infospace. There he launched the region’s first mobile portals. Subsequently Bill held VP Latin America positions for Critical Path and Openwave. Bill is originally from Seattle, WA. He has a BA in Philosophy from Amherst College and an MBA from Harvard University.
Agenda:
- 6.30 pm: Registrations
- 7.00 pm: Presentation by Bill Scott
- 7.45 pm: Group Discussion
- 8.15 pm: Networking Dinner
Where:
Grapeviine
Club Peninsula,
Peninsula Corporate Park
Lower Parel West, Mumbai.
When:
6.30 pm – 9 pm
Monday, 30th May 2011
RSVP:
http://momomum201105.eventbrite.com/
Sponsor:
GetJar is the world’s largest open app store; second only to Apple’s iTunes, with over 1.5 billion downloads to date. The company provides more than 75,000 applications across all major handsets and platforms to consumers in more than 200 countries and territories. GetJar was founded by, now CEO, Ilja Laurs, in Lithuania.
Micromax & Mediatek
Category: Handsets | 2 Comments | Posted on May 6, 2011
Recently we purchased the Micromax A60 Android-based phone for our lab at Ravience. Its a damn good phone for its price; a review is due for another post. Not long ago Micromax wouldn’t have made it to the shortlist when buying a handset for me. And here I am being a happy user of the A60. How did we get it here from nowhere in just 3 years?
First some background about the enabler – Mediatek.
The emergence of Mediatek, the first sizeable Asian chip company, spawned an ecosystem of device assemblers, some of whom have beaten all multinational brands in sales except Nokia and Samsung.
And nearly all of those chipsets, which are the heart of a phone, went to unbranded or ‘white label’ Chinese manufacturers.
The success of Mediatek’s offering was simplicity itself. Unlike other chip makers, who expected their clients to have a large research & design team to put together phones, Mediatek aimed at small manufacturers who don’t have such luxuries.And, unlike rivals, it offered the blueprint for a near-complete phone and tools to easily tweak or customise the basic design. It also provided its own software to run the phone, again with tweaking options.
“Of course, we owe a lot of our success to Mediatek,” says Vikas Jain, business director of Micromax, the most successful of the new breed of ‘Mediatek’ phone makers.
“There used to be a time when you would have had to get your chipsets from Infineon or Qualcomm. Now we have Mediatek and a large part of their success is because of the ease with which their basic designs can be altered. They give you about 60% of the design and you add another 40% of features, opening up the possibility of innovation at your level,” Jain says.
Today, there are anywhere between 20 and 50 Mediatek-based mobile brands in India…
Within the desi bunch are two groups — the ones that have a hand in designing the phone and those who purchase handsets manufactured by Chinese companies in bulk.“It is mainly the distributors of big brands like Nokia and Samsung who are launching their own brands. They believe that they own a certain part of the distribution channel and if they create their own brand, they can push it downwards,” Micromax’s Jain said.
To its credit, Spice Mobiles saw the opportunity for desi mobile phone brands before others did. But Micromax overtook Spice as the market leader among Indian brands. TA Associates acquired a stake (less than 20 percent) in Micromax for $45 million, valuing it upwards of $225 million.
Originally a distribution company, Micromax was engaged in reselling computer hardware and accessories since 2000. It also manufactured phones for Airtel’s public call offices (PCOs).
Micromax launched its first mobile handset in April 2008. It was helped by the Indian government’s decision to bar illegally-imported Chinese phones that lacked an identifying IMEI number. A zero-import duty on cell phones has helped the industry proliferate.
Some facts and figures about Micromax.
- Its first handset was the Micromax X1 boasting a month long battery life
- Sells more than a million handsets a month with a market share of around 10%
- Posted revenues of Rs 1,600 crore and a net profit of Rs 150 crore in 2009-10
- Has a presence in more than 500 districts through 34 “super-distributors”, 450 distributors and 70,000 retailers
- Retailer gets 5-10% on Indian brands compared to 2-3% on MNC brands
- Follows a cash-carry distrbution model unlike competitors who offer a 60-day credit line.
Micromax gives value-for-money, what we desis call Sasta-Sundar-Tikau phones. Although the Tikau part is questionable. Lets look at the three killer features available at low price which I think helped it garner market share.
- Long battery life
- Dual SIMs
- QWERTY
Some other key features worth mentioning are:
- Support for 1/2 GB memory cards
- Colour phones with decent screen-size to watch videos
- Loud speakers
- Cordless FM phones
- Bluetooth
Here’s an interesting reality of the economics of this business. Indian brands are cheaper but not the cheapest.
Almost none of the desi brands play in the entry-level segment because their starting prices are around 50% higher than the Rs 1,100 Nokia and LG sell at.
“We are not even present in the sub-$30 phone market, as our cheapest phone is Rs.1,400.” That segment is dominated by Nokia with a market share of close to 80 percent.
Surprisingly, the average selling price of a Micromax set is only around Rs 300 lower than a Nokia, so cramming more features has certainly worked.
Spice Mobiles has an average selling price of Rs 2,034 per handset and purchase cost of Rs 1,484. Marketing and other expenses cost Rs 513, and Spice is left with a pretax profit of Rs 232 per handset.
Source material for this post is mainly taken from this well-researched DNA article as well this Forbes piece. This case study on Micromax has tidbits on their distribution and operational model for those interested.
Lastly, its time they worked on branding. Their logo is awfully uncool.
VeerChand Bothra
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