Inviting the mobile developer community for the June event of Mobile Monday Mumbai hosted by Reliance Communicatons.
So far the events of Mobile Monday Mumbai had business-centric themes. Thanks to the support of Reliance Communications we will be hosting a mobile developer centric event for the first time.
Added attraction this time will be a 15 min guided tour of the famed (NASA like) Reliance National Network Operating Centre. Also, have heard great things about the venue and food 
Reliance has been kind to arrange a vehicle for transport to and fro from Sena Bhawan, Dadar to the conference venue. Seats will be booked on a first-come-first-serve basis. You can state your preference while registering.
Topic:
Emerging Trends in Mobile Application Development
Agenda:
- Visit to NNOC (Optional)
- Anil Pande, Head - Product Developement Management,
Application Solutions and Content Group, Reliance Communications
- Speaker 2 (Yet to be confirmed)
- Panel Discussion
- Group discussion
- Poolside Dinner
When:
Monday, 4th June, 2007
5.30 pm - 7.30pm
Those interested in visiting the NNOC will need to arrive by 4:30pm.
Where:
Hermitage Lakeside Guest House
Gate No. 02,
Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City,
Opp. KoperKhairne Railway Station,
Navi Mumbai - 400710.
Click here to see a photo of the venue!
Sponsors:
Click here to register.
Announcing the company’s results, Reliance Communications chairman Anil Ambani said: “We are presently operating our GSM business in 8 circles and in 8,000 towns. We plan a full roll-out in all our circles this year.”
The company would need Rs 4,500 crore for the nationwide GSM roll-out. It would also be setting up 20,000 towers. However, a nationwide roll-out would depend on spectrum availability.
Reliance Communications also announced ambitious roll-out targets, including commitment to a nationwide WiMax network and the expansion of its infrastructure base from 13,000 towers to 33,000 by the end of the year.
The towers would have the capability to handle all technologies like GSM, CDMA, WiMax and 3G, Ambani said, adding they would meet the requirements of Reliance Communications as well as tenants. With the tenants paying the company a fee for using the towers, it would constitute another revenue-stream for the company, he said.
Reliance Communications had an ARPU of Rs371 per subscriber per month as of March 2007.
The company disconnected some 5.6 million users as it completed the subscriber verification process.
Sources: Live Mint and Financial Express
State-owned GSM operator Nepal Telecom launched Nepal’s and Indian sub-continent’s first 3G service on May 17.
The 3G SIM card reportedly cost Nepali Rs 4,195 (US$64.50) with 3G tariffs similar to that of prepaid rates.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has released guidelines for the running of MVNOs. Pakistan had 58.39 million mobile subscribers at the end of April 2007.
- Mobilink = 25.21 million subscribers
- Ufone = 12.49 million subscribers
- Warid = 9.71 million subscribers
- Telenor = 9.63 million subscribers
- Paktel = 1.02 million subscribers
- Instaphone = 333,000 subscribers
An analysis by telecom regulator Trai on the success of lifetime validity schemes over six months revealed that in revenue proportion, lifetime schemes are no different from the general tariff plans offered by mobile operators.
“The big picture emerging from the analysis based on empirical data is that the scheme has been very popular. The scheme has been one of the driving forces for the explosive growth of mobile subscribers, which is witnessed in the current year, ie, 2006. At he same time, service providers seem to be getting a reasonable ARPU from the scheme despite the fact that the scheme was primarily targeted towards low-usage and marginal customers”
Main points from the study:
- 16% of the country’s mobile base has opted for such schemes
- Only 51% of these were new users, while the rest had migrated from their exisiting schemes
- 28% of the total additions during the six months period was on account of lifetime validity schemes
- These users also had an average monthly revenue per user (ARPU) of Rs 218 per month compared with Rs 261 for normal prepaid users
- At least 72% of subscribers opting for this scheme recharge their phones every month
- These are high users of value added services
- If a customer on a lifetime scheme uses his mobile for a minute, his operator gets 80 paise, compared to 77 paose for a normal subscriber
The Trai data breaks two myths, says AUSPI director general, SC Khanna
“First, the belief that lifetime prepaid subscribers don’t make outgoing calls and second, that a bulk of these customers hail from poorer states (B & C category circles) whose people have very low economic income such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, North East, Orissa and Jammu & Kashmir.’’
This is because the study has said that over 90% of subscribers who opted for this scheme in the poorer states recharged their cards every month, against a national average of 72% and 62% in the metro cities.
The main motive of lifetime schemes is subscriber lock-in and lowering the entry barrier for new customers.
Mobile operators are bringing the entry barrier further down. Bharti Airtel, Hutch and Idea are now offering lifetime validity for Rs. 495, while Reliance Communications charges Rs. 499.
Sources: Economic Times and Hindu
Idea Cellular, India’s sixth largest operator, has signed a $500 million network expansion contract with Nokia Siemens.
The two-year deal will double Idea’s capacity in six of its eleven existing circles - Delhi, Haryana, UP (East), UP (West), Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. It will allow Idea to expand reach to 6,000 new centres besides the existing areas.
The company has started project work on roll out of cellular services in Mumbai, but the final launch will depend on allocation of spectrum.
This is Nokia Siemens first contract in India after the merger of Nokia Networks with Siemens Communications.
In February this year, Idea had signed a three-year contract with Swedish equipment giant Ericsson for GSM expansion in the Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh telecom circles.
Also Read: Bharti expands deal with Nortel
Virgin Mobile is entering the Indian market through a 50:50 joint venture with Tata TeleServices, possibly in the next month.
Virgin will exclusively license the Virgin Mobile brand and technology expertise in the area of value-added services (VAS) and handsets to TTSL. This will allow CDMA operator TTSL to use Virgin’s core expertise in marketing and service innovation to create offerings which will be largely targeted at the youth segment
The Tata Indicomm brand will be positioned as the mass market brand while Virgin will be a more youthful brand as it is seen globally. The move is likely to help TTSL expand market share from the current 7.1% (over 11 million users) as Virgin, one of the most respected service brands in the world, has a global connect with the youth segment. Youth comprise nearly 50% of Indian cellular users.
Virgin Mobile is the world’s first mobile virtual network operator (MVNO).
It does not maintain its own network and instead has contracts to use the existing networks of other providers, on which it offers services under the Virgin brand. The company is present in six countries — the US, the UK, France, South Africa, Australia and Canada. Each of its businesses acts as an independent entity, usually in partnership with another local company which provides the network infrastructure.
Since MVNOs are not yet permitted in India, Virgin will not be an MVNO here. Instead, it will be an agent of TTSL and Virgin Mobile-branded services will be available over TTSL’s network.
The Virgin Group also has a technical and consultancy services agreement with Essar Telecom Retail, the retail venture of the Ruias. Under this agreement, the Virgin group is providing its expertise in the areas of branding, marketing, customer care, store operations and staff training to Essar’s The Mobile Store.
Source: ET
Bharti Airtel has reported a whopping 98% increase in its fourth quarter net profit at Rs 1,353 crore as its revenue increased by 58% to Rs 5393 crore. For the year ended March 2007, Bharti’s net profit increased 89% to Rs 4,257 crore while sales rose 59% to touch 18,520 crore.
Bharti chairman and MD, Sunil Mittal:
Hutch has given us the highest quality of competition and I don’t see Vodafone being any different. Despite competition, our marketshare has gone up significantly to 22.9% from 20.4% last year and we have also been able to increase our operating margin…
As we move forward into the coming years, I am very confident that India will have 500 million mobile phones by 2010
Key points:
- Bharti Airtel added the highest ever net addition of 53 lakh customers in a single quarter (Q4-FY0607) and also the highest ever net addition of 1.8 crore total subscribers in 2006-07
- The company will invest up to $3.5 billion this fiscal (07-08) in network expansion.
- It has a installed base of 40,000 cellsites and 59% population coverage
- After the proposed network expansion, an additional 30,000 towers will result in the company achieving 70% population coverage
- Bharti has over 39 million users as on March 31, 2007
- It has set a target of 125 million subscribers by 2010
- Prepaid customers account for 88.5% of Bharti’s total subscriber base, an increase from 82.7% a year ago
- ARPU has dropped to Rs 406
- Non-voice revenues, (SMS, voice mail, call management, hello tunes and Airtel Live) constituted 10% of total revenues during Q4, lower than 10.7% in the Q4 of the previous year
- Blended monthly minutes of usage per customer in Q4 was at 475 minutes
- Has completed 100% verification of its subscribers and in the process disconnected three lakh subscribers
Sources: Zee and ET
Bharti Airtel has received approval to become the 5th operator in Sri Lanka. It will invest $150 million to start its 2G and 3G services in the country.
Outside India, Bharti Airtel operates in the Seychelles and the UK Channel Islands.
The other companies which placed their bids for the license were Reliance Communications and Maxis Telecom.
Sri Lanka snapshot:
- 4.5 million mobile phone subscribers as of 2006
- Telekom Malaysia’s Dialog Telekom is the top operator with 3.3 million subscribers
- Followed by Mobitel, Celltel Lanka and Hutchison
- Phone penetration at 20%
- 3 fixed line operators
Yahoo! has launched OneSearch, its mobile search service, in India.
OneSearch is a keyword search on the mobile at http://m.yahoo.com, which can be accessed on a mobile browser with a GPRS connection. All that users need to do is enter a zip code or the city name for OneSearch to start delivering local search results. The results appear on a single page, and are prioritized into categories based on calculations done by Yahoo! computers.
Unlike computer web search that spews raw sets of links, OneSearch throws up a list of actual information, such as news headlines, images from Yahoo’s Flickr site, business listings, local weather, and links to other Web sites.
For instance, instead of popular movies or critical reviews, OneSearch lists local theaters playing a particular movie, user ratings of the movie, and news headlines related to it.
Yahoo! intends to help a whole lot of local advertisers reach mobile phone customers - as they search. The ads will let users interact by visiting their sites or landing page, or by connecting to them through a call.
Prior to this launch, Yahoo! Go mobile was available to mobile users in India as a downloadable application, providing access to services such as Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger.
This move by Yahoo! bodes well for growth of GPRS and browsable -web in India. I hope Yahoo! follows it up with a media campaign to spread awareness.
Sources: TechTree and agencyfaqs
High-profile Communication and IT Minister Dayananidhi Maran has resigned.
His resignation is a fallout of political turmoil after Dinakaran, a daily owned by the union minister’s elder brother Kalanidhi Maran, carried a survey that exposed chinks in the family of Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister M Karunanidhi. Dayanidhi Maran is from Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK party.
Lets hope this political drama does not effect the speed of India’s telecom growth.
GSM mobile operators added 4.13 million new subscribers in the month of April, as against addition of 6.13 million users in March. The total number of GSM subscribers is at 125.57 million, up from 121.43 million in March, showing a growth of 3.4 per cent aginst the previous month’s 5.32 per cent.
The April GSM data also points out that Hutch Essar (Vodafone Essar) subscriber base has moved extremely close to that of BSNL in April. While the traditional GSM number two, BSNL, has a base of 27.74 million, Hutch Essar shows up as a close third at 27.70 million. In the previous month, BSNL had 27.42 million GSM users, against Hutch Essar’s 26.44 million.
The dip in GSM mobile growth is being attributed to the poor show by state-owned BSNL and MTNL during April.
BSNL has added only 0.3 million GSM users during April, showing a growth of just 1.19% over the previous month. This is a contrast to BSNL’s 1.98 million addition in March registering a 7.8% growth. MTNL user base has dropped by 0.2% in April, showing a decline of 9.58%. In March, MTNL base had risen by 0.16 million, with a growth of 6.5%.
According to industry insiders, in the last month of the financial year (March), the subscriber figures usually go up quite dramatically because companies want to meet targets. The BSNL growth in March displayed that trend, they added.
Bharti = 1.75 million new users, 38.89 million total, 30.97% market share
BSNL = 0.32 million new users, 27.74 million total, 22.10% market share
Hutch Essar = 1.26 million new users, 27.70 million total, 22.06% market share
Idea = 0.55 million new users, 14.5 million total, 11.60% market share
As of end of March 2007, the total number of mobile subscribers (GSM and CDMA) were 166.05 million. The total phone subscriber base was at 206.83 million as of end of March, including fixed line users.
Source: DNA
Japanese mobile giant NTT DoCoMo has annulled its contract with Hutch Essar (HEL) to provide its ‘i-mode’ mobile internet service.
In December 2006, DoCoMo and HEL had signed an agreement to launch this service in India by 2007-end. DoCoMo is Vodafone’s rival in the global VAS and 3G applications space. The contract with DoCoMo was terminated after Vodafone took over Hutch, as Vodafone already provides similar services in Europe and will extend them to India.
Under the deal with HEL, NTT DoCoMo was to license patented technologies and the knowhow for Hutch to offer i-mode on GSM, GPRS and W-CDMA networks. This would have enabled HEL customers to enjoy access to rich content, which includes e-mail, games and other entertainment services.
Vodafone will soon launch its value-added services in India, including Vodafone Live (its global content platform), its mobile payments platform and its extensive business portfolio that encompass wireless office and mobile money transfers.
Other VAS applications likely to be launched here include Vodafone Passport, a simple roaming price plan, Vodafone Simply, a straightforward voice and data package and the Vodafone Mobile ConnectCard for laptops which makes wireless internet access possible.
Vodafone’s partnerships for VAS are with the largest players, including YouTube for videos, MySpace for social networking, Google for search, Yahoo for instant messaging and eBay for online buying and selling.
Source: ET
Vodafone cleared its last hurdle in acquiring a controlling stake in Hutch Essar with finance minister P Chidambaram giving his go-ahead on Friday. His approval comes within a week of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board giving its nod for the acquisition.
The approval comes as a welcome reprieve to Analjit Singh and Asim Ghosh, whose 12.26% shareholding in Hutch Essar has been under scrutiny since the deal was announced in February. RBI and some government officials were reported to have initially opined that stakes held by Mr Singh, Mr Ghosh amounted to violation of FDI/Fema norms and were ‘benami’ transactions.
Despite the Finance ministry clearance, Vodafone will still have to contend a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by an NGO called Telecom Watchdog, pending in the Delhi High Court.
The company will be renamed Vodafone Essar.
Vodafone will now be able to constitute a new 12-member board to oversee the operations of the company. Essar vice-chairman Ravi Ruia will be the chairman of Vodafone Essar and Vodafone chairman Arun Sarin will be the vice-chairman. Max India chairman Analjit Singh and HEL MD Asim Ghosh will also be on the board.
Source: ET
The May event of Mobile Monday Mumbai will take place on May 7th.
Big thanks to Geodesic for sponsoring the event and supporting the Mobile Monday community.
Topic:
Mobile Messaging Futures
Mobile messaging is an integral part of the mobile industry and contributes significantly to the total mobile service revenues of almost every network operator on the planet. The Indian market, already large SMS P2P and P2A market, is poised to witness significant growth in new mobile messaging services; MMS, Email and Instant Messaging. What are the factors driving this growth? What are the challenges and opportunities the Industry faces? Will the consumer stand to gain in the end?
Agenda:
* Atul Chitnis, Senior Vice President, Geodesic
* Group Discussions
* Networking Dinner
When:
Monday, 7th May, 2007
6.30 pm - 9.00 pm
Where:
MIG Cricket Club
M.I.G Colony,
Near Western Express Highway,
Bandra – East,
Mumbai.
Phone: 26457108/56047108
Click here to register for the event.
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