Indian Mobile device segment is making transition from Feature phone to Smartphone. The low price point based Smartphone is triggering device replacement cycle and it is widely expected that Indian Smartphone segment is going to achieve more than 20% share total Mobile device market size by the end of March 2014 given the changing user adoption metrics which would be more than 100% jump YoY. According to Cyber Media Research, India FY12-13 mobile device market size was 221.6 million with 15.2 million as Smartphone. India Smartphone sale for Q3FY13 came at 10.3 Mn and achieved 15% QoQ growth (Canalys Research).
The higher adoption of Smartphone and feature up-gradation of feature phone is opening new opportunities for MVAS service providers in India. As everyone is aware about ongoing regulatory imposed consent gateway impact on MVAS service providers business and technical domain, OEM would act as pillar to reignite MVAS adoption. As OEM offer MVAS products or service or applications bundled with their devices to differentiate themselves in crowded Indian device market.
The device OEM’s are now considered as new gateway by MVAS providers to acquire new subscribers by reusing their mobile network integration at low user acquisition, marketing and sales cost in a scenario of new enforced regulation of UCC (Unsolicited Commercial Communications), MVAS regulations, MVAS amendments and falling operator level support.
The OEM’s level integration offer layer 1 exposure of MVAS service provider’s product to end user instead of cluttered exposure they receive through mobile operator. The MVAS service providers failed to increase their user adoption by pushing mobile operator level hosted product line due to hundred of similar products offered by mobile operators.
With higher adoption of Smartphone, OEM’s are also working to create parallel MVAS ecosystem by reusing Mobile Operator network as delivery media. With more than 150 million active revenue generating data subscribers, OEM’s are shifting from legacy paid preloads to Agnostic MVAS ecosystem whereby focusing on Applications or AppStore taking care of both consumers and prosumer’s segment. OEM’s also realized their strength as MVAS enablers are also looking to develop recurring revenue out of it instead one time preload money.
Since, most of the MVAS service providers offering services through OEM integration gets the billing done at operator level due to the limitation of limited post paid user base and therefore also generate opportunity for Mobile Operators to get lion share of revenue for renting or share OSS/BSS. Interestingly, many MVAS service providers twisted their product in such as way which neutralizes many regulations and creates an environment where user request for pull instead of earlier push mechanism to access any MVAS services.
The changed dynamics from Mobile operator level MVAS campaign, marketing, and push to OEM based user initiated pull request is going to increase adoption as user will get MVAS services through pull services
