Impending threat to Video Centric Mobile Applications - More player's than User base

Indian economic directions and subsequent entry by players are generally dominated by one successful use case. In India, most of the companies hesitate to take the first step whereas the case is just reversed when it comes to other developed companies. That is the reason that being one of the greatest mind aggregator, Indian companies always act as service providers instead of owner of product or services or applications or be it anything else.

With the ongoing revolution underway in Telecom sector and slow death of Telecom operator centric Mobile VAS segment due to very stringent regulatory guideline in India; many VAS companies moved into Applications or platform or service category to survive. Reliance Jio, helped the ecosystem with a hope that India will be the market of data user and data centric products or applications or games or anything else will get adopted like forest fire.

Indians are generally fond of music, movies and cricket. The fall of MVAS business at operator level prompted major players like Hungama and Saavn to quickly change their strategy and moved into Application based content delivery through Device manufacturing delivery. Hungama even went one step further an launched their movie based applications. The slight success of both the player brought in number of players like Sony, Zee, Star, VIU, Eros and many more. Ironically, most of them went with open wallet and acquired user through heavy promotional activities instead of organic growth. Indian Telecom sector with Data ARPU of less than $2.25 in best case scenario trumped most of them as their content adoption went high for free content or till the offer period whereas they failed to get the expected growth rate for the paid userbase. I do agree that Indian Smartphone segment is growing but at the same time the mindset of the end user is to access default Video application YouTube.

In my point of view, the video applications player should come out with disruptive engagement model with end user wherein user start paying for the content instead of relying on advertisement which is not long term option

Stay Away From So Called Device Performance Enhancement Application - What Changed in Last One Year

In 2014, the exponential growthin the Smartphone market propelled many startups to come out with Device enhancement applications. Most of them were china based brand full with marketing $'s. They attached the app store along with their product and positioned themselves as companies who can help device player with utility applications such as memory cleaner to battery optimizer to app lock kind of product and positioned itself in security segment too.

On the face of it, it looked really impressive and most of the OEM went for it as they thought the it will be helpful to end user and at the same time will reduce the issue around heating of devices due to multiple running app, memory optimization by enabling or disabling or deleting applications from device to release space for end user. Reducing screen brightness, reducing the sleep mode and auto closing the applications.

They invested the huge marketing money to acquire user base with a perception that through ad monetization and higher usage of application; they will achieve the RoI quickly and will be profitable soon.

Unfortunately, the success of clean master in India prompted Baidu to Q360 to Leo master to pump in money to buy out the user base but failed to under the psychology of end user and changing trend in device segment.

The release of device with higher specification of RAM enabled user to manage their device performance by their own and it triggered the fall in DAU and MAU. The attached app store monetization was negligible as India is place of reward oriented place where user expects to get something in return of download.

The blunder they did is to integrate multiple applications along with utility application which increased the size of the application which inturn acted as raised concern from the user to partner level.

The above landed the companies to rethink their strategy in India and many of them lost huge user base as churn rate in App segment in India.

In India, still there is huge opportunity of such application but it needs to design as per the Indian environment catering the need of end user. I wish all the best to innovative utility application provider operating in India.

Rise in Android Malicious Applications – Impact and Opportunity

According to Juniper Mobile, 92% of all malware applications are designed with Android environment and 500 plus 3d party Android Application store are used to bypass any uneven pattern by hackers. Juniper Mobile Threat Centre analysed more than 1.85 million sampled applications covering all major mobile OS during FY12 and identified 275K plus malicious Applications and 3 out of 5 such applications are originating from either China or Russia. The YoY malicious application growth is more than 155% and 92% of identified malicious application was targeted towards Android Platform. The unmatched growth attached with Android Mobile OS attracted hacker to cash in on ongoing adoption trend. There are multiple mechanism hacker can attract user to download applications and subsequently steal or redirect all activity information of user. Juniper also claimed that 77% of the designed malware turned into viral malware due to non updation of mobile OS version. The report indirect indication is clear. Many Application stores failed to implement stringent security tools, process, content contextual pattern related features to identify unavailable signature based malware. User must be getting an alert by the applications store to update device OS to mitigate any upcoming unwarranted threat. It also indicate lack of integrated mechanism to support remote user management to send across forced update to user by Apps store. All of us talk about BYOD, Remote configuration and confirmation management but in reality many service provider failed to integrate must have components of analytical and security management tools to safeguard their customers. It is not far away when Smartphone would be used by Hackers to launch DDoS attack to bring down communication medium. On the opportunity side, with the growing adoption of Tablet and Smartphone as computing device to execute professional activities, server defined mirror security platform may get quick traction.

Unsolicited Commercial Communications Regulation in India– Trigger for Mobile Based Advertisement

The online advertisement spend by advertisers are reached INR 2260 Cr ending March 2013. The market size is too low. The advertiser’s prefer to opt for telemarketing and promotional SMS to reach out to Mobility user compared to application based mobile advertisement on mobile. The Applications ecosystem in India is not matured enough to offer hidden potential of device centric and application hosted mobile advertisement due to number of reasons such as backend delivery, Contextual capture, mobile e-Commerce mechanism. The lack of technology supported triggered advertisers to choose telemarketing and promotional SMS to offer product awareness drive through the mentioned media. In order to keep the cost low and offer better value proposition, many telemarketing and bulk advertisement providers decided to choose short cuts to capture market share. The move turned out to be risk for consumer privacy, content security. Post multiple regulatory directives, regulators failed to stop pesky telemarketing calls and SMS by telemarketing companies. In order to control unaccounted billions of message routing through illegal mechanism prompted regulators to put the onus on Wireless operators to enhance their network to eradicate or control revenue leakage which is impacting whole ecosystem player. Post few high voltage meetings and directives, it is observed that many companies indulged in Mobile Marketing using Telemarketing and SMS experienced drastic fall in their order flow and business. Any positive impact of unsolicited commercial communication regulation would force advertisers to find another medium to reach out to consumer base. With the growing adoption of Application among Indian medium to high end smartphone users, Mobile marketing business is going to be redirected to Mobile advertisement based marketing. In my earlier post, I mentioned about Mobile based advertisement market size of INR 230 Cr but I can see that $ Bn’s opportunity is waiting for the smart companies to capture.

Microsoft Window Mobile Adoption Challenge – Apps Developer Support, Availability & Downloads

Microsoft made another attempt using Window and Build conference platform to attract developer communities in its fold by offering attractive incentives. Microsoft wants to build on their limited success with WM8.0 and redefined WM8.1 by showcasing differentiated consumer and prosumer connect capabilities. Microsoft CEO Ballmer used conference to highlight application segment attached growth in application download and revenue but at the same time confirmed their position in application market dominated by Android and iOS. According to Telegraph analysis, global applications download per month from Google play crossed 2.5 Bn Whereas its  2Bn from iOS ,Apple supported apps store. On contrary, download from Microsoft apps store only crossed 200 Mn per month. The number clearly indicates Microsoft desperation to mark its presence in application domain and create more stickiness around its product line.

Indian Telecom PSU’s BSNL & MTNL are Focusing on Enterprise Business to Grow

Encouraged with greater acceptance of Enterprise solutions by Customer and clocking 4000 Cr revenue, BSNL is eyeing double digit revenue growth in FY13. BSNL entered into ten year contract with Dimension Data to invest 200Cr to develop BSNL cloud service based on Dimension Data Managed Cloud. The BSNL cloud service to customers will be served through its Internet datacentre which is located in major cities in and around Metro cities. In order to fill connectivity gap to customers to tap new customer base, BSNL is using MTNL connectivity offering to offer managed cloud solution. BSNL is optimistic as client base, capacity utilization is going up. I will be eagerly observing the growth transformation of Government Owned BSNL and its cascading positive impact on MTNL