Matrimonial money for mobile firms

Posted on | September 18, 2005 |

Business Standard has a story on matchmaking services like chat, dating and find-a-friend offered by operators.

Non-voice/SMS VAS revenues constitute probably less than 3 percentage of operators revenues. It surely acts as a differentiator helping the operators to compete on more than pricing. The following comment in the article is interesting in this regard.

The telecom companies’ have positioned these offerings under value-added services (VAS), which is not a revenue earner. VAS is an offering to retain users. However, the matrimonial services have begun to churn in revenues, albiet on a slow footing.

Reliance is going a step further by leveraging their WebWorld internet cafes. It also provides additional services like online web cast of weddings, booking of marriage halls, legal counselling, marriage-related purchases and even honeymoon packages.

Reliance Infocomm provides its matrimonial services through R World suite of applications, which is accessible through its Reliance IndiaMobile (RIM) handsets. The suite has a database of profiles, enabling a user to search for a partner from any part of the country.

The company charges Rs 25 for posting a profile and Rs 2 for sending an SMS. However, the Infocomm official claims that this is on a lower side as online registration with matrimonial portals for a limited period ranges from Rs 750 to Rs 1,500 per user.

Reliance WebWorld chief executive officer, Sarup Chowdhury said, “We have two products that can play a crucial role in bringing people together. One is the matrimonial service and the other is the video-conferencing facility and I recall 10 to 12 instances where our video-conferencing facilities were used by prospective groom and bride before finalising the marriage

Category: VAS

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