Rapid growth in the Indian mobile phone industry
Skip contentWireless telephony has overtaken fixed telephony in India. In the midst of 41.6 million wireless subscribers, and a one billion strong population, India’s market potential is enormous. With the proliferation of the Hot Wireless service, India is regarded as the hottest growth wireless frontier and is the world’s 13th largest (source EMC). It is predicted this market will continue to grow many more times in magnitude, and that India will be counted as one of the top 5 markets in the world, alongside China, Brazil, the USA and Russia. The blistering speed of wireless technological advancement, plus a huge subscriber interest in Mobile entertainment, makes India a highly attractive market. An unofficial report from a very prestigious Firm says that this rate of growth in India will remain unstoppable, and should cross the 120 million subscriber mark by 2008.
With the rapid increase in the number of subscribers the demand for value added services has gone up, and consequently the operators and aggregators have demanded higher quality content products to pass onto their customers. To maximize growth and revenue opportunities, in this burgeoning wireless content space, wireless service providers need to implement end-to-end content management solutions. Such solutions are needed to ensure cost-effective and scalable content management capabilities, and to provide best-of-class content experiences for users, which in turn drives further content adoption and usage. A comprehensive content management solution must address core issues such as acquiring, managing, and releasing high volumes of timely, accurate, and desired content to specific end users. And the only cost-effective way to address such complex and inter-related issues - even in the medium-term - is through end-to-end solutions that are integrated, automated, flexible, and fully scalable.
“Value Added Services” have definitely caught the attention of every operator. Today, data-based VAS is more than just hype, at least from the revenue standpoint. There is a huge untapped VAS market sector, which when fully exploited will lead to mega bucks for everyone. However, for that to happen, content providers need to approach the whole game with a new mindset, something that the Handygo company - a New Delhi based value added service and content provider - has done in India.
Handygo is a pioneer in vernacular content development. They have gained experience in content management by working in partnership with the major Operators and aggregators in India and abroad. Handygo’s strategy is far reaching, and goes beyond simply optimizing the contents required by their customers. According to Mr. Praveen Rajpal, the CEO of Handygo, he ensures that the company not only meets the challenge of delivering the best content, but they also seek out every opportunity to lower their costs via automation. This drive for greater efficiency is built into the content handling process, and enables the company to find solutions that address both current and future needs. A robust content management solution should not only be end-to-end, it should also meet the needs of wireless service providers.
Handygo, unlike its competitors, acquires content that is most needed, and which also satisfies the vernacular requirements of the market. Designing content that will be suitable for both the Narrowband and Broadband sectors has actually increased the choice of those value added services being offered to subscribers. The major content providers - such as Mauj, Indiagames, Hungama - all compete in the same market domain, although Handygo is an exception in that it caters for more diversified entertainment contents. Handygo, unlike its competitors, already provides an entire platform for all the value added services, and this is a major cost barrier for any company wishing to set up value added services today. Team Handygo understand this and offers the complete expertise platform to operators.
According to Mr. Rajpal, his passion for work acts as his main driving force, and this enables Handygo to stay competitive and tuned in to the industry.
Submitted by:
Saurabh Suman
