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.

Nokia Asha Platform Adoption - Critical for Company Growth

Last few years observed major upsets and repositioning of device manufacturer on global level. Nokia decision to move out of Symbian triggered unprecedented fall in Nokia Feature and Mid-range device volume and at the same time lost its number one position Samsung. Samsung captured never to miss opportunity and invested heavily on brand building, device innovation, and mobile device availability across price range to capture market share from Nokia. The fall in Nokia market share, profitability, restructuring, positioning of Lumia Series and slow uptake of Lumia prompted many analyst to write down Nokia survivability chance and resurgence of the same.

Nokia in the last few years tried to develop many mobile OS and subsequently scrapped it. The master of mid-priced phones, Nokia launched Asha series value filled device and consumer received it well. The Chinese device OEM’s came out with low priced Smartphone changed consumers adoption pattern. After three plus years of research and development, Nokia developed Asha Platform which is designed for Low to medium range smartphone.

This week Nokia launched $99 Asha501 smartphone based on Asha Platform in Thailand and Pakistan to target geographies to play volume game. Nokia already taking online booking in India and is expected to launch Asha501 next month. The low priced differentiated feature packed device is expected to gain good traction in emerging countries.

BY launching Asha platform attached Asha 501, Nokia sent clear message to consumers and competitor that Nokia filled the vacuum in their portfolio post Symbian OS decision. It also indicates Nokia strategy to target volume play with Asha platform and Premium consumers with Window Mobile OS based Lumia.

This time around misstep which happened during Lumia device availability due to component shortage may act as major blow. Nokia supply chain efficiency to deliver volume and availability of device in multiple geographies may turn competitive heat towards Competitors.

India command only 2.10% of the worldwide Smartphone market in FY12-13 – Opportunity for Smartphone players

Global shipment of smartphone in FY12-13 achieved 722.3 Million units based on IDC research. At the same time, India smartphone market size stands at 15.2 Mn according to Cyber Media Research. India is home of 12.66% of global mobility subscriber whereas contribute only 2.1% of global smartphone market size. With on-going reduction or offers from global player to sustain their market share against home grown smartphone player; it offers great opportunity for Indian mobility subscriber. As 93% plus Indian mobility device market is non-smartphone centric and availability of Sub $ 200 offer great opportunity for existing or new players in India. As per IDC and Cyber Media Research that Indian Smartphone may experience high double digit growth for next few years.

Cloud Based Unified Service Delivery Platform – Low Cost and High Return

With the adoption of high speed data network supporting triple play services or products, the focus turned on increasing the adoption of data from voice centric service. Most of the mobile operator in India focussed on product positioning and experienced low adoption due to price vs. performance factor considered by potential user. Cloud based Unified Service Delivery Platform can be a game changer to enable mobile operator to tag innovative product provider with superior customer management. It would reduce User, Service, Partner acquisition, activation, upgrades, notification, billing, troubleshooting, RCA as well as management and operational cost. Reeling under decreasing EBITA, high TCA, high TCO and Low ROI, the potential proposition would enable mobile operator’s to achieve low risk and high reward through cutting edge Technology platform offered by leading and Innovative Technology companies. The same platform can then be reused to deliver Enterprise Horizontal and Vertical to tap the untapped business opportunity in India. In order to achieve the same, product manager should think ecosystem module of content, context, competition, commerce, connectivity closely tagged with Performance, Priority. In conclusion, shift towards User, Device, and Network agnostic environment to increase Product, Service, Customer, Revenue assurance.