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ACCORDING TO industry experts, who congregated at seventh VAS INDIA 2010,

the Indian value added services (VAS) industry is expected to touch a

turnover of over Rs 21,000 crore by the year 2013. The event was organisedby Bharat Exhibitions at Taj Lands End, Mumbai.

Subhash Dhar, member executive council and group head sales andmarketing, Infosys quoted in his keynote speech that till now Internet wasconsidered a radical phenomenon but now the mobile is all set to create asimilar revolution. Mobile value added services are about to create a huge buzz in

the market for the masses. The point was supported by Uday Sodhi, chief

executive officer, Balaji Telefilms, The current Average Revenue per User(ARPU) lingers around eight to nine per cent however, by the end of this

year we shall see a rise to about 12 to 14 per cent with an extensive

increase to nearly Rs 11,000 crore.

The future of businesses will be driven by broader digital engagement with

their consumers and will act as a catalyst in the future economy, accordingto Dhar. He further added that all ecosystem players will have to join hands

to bring mobile value added services to the masses.

With over more than 500 million mobile phone users in the country,penetration to various areas with multilingual diversities and providing vast

content like games, applications, astrology, mobile banking etc and related

services is a challenge which has to be accomplished. The emphasis was on

the 3G/4G aspect and providing faster access like broadband availability to

take MVAS further. Shyam Mardikar, senior vice president - Networks, Bharti

Airtel Limited said, Telecom is a mature business and the consumer ischoosy, quality of services needs to be refined, optimised and manifestation

of existing services has to be done.

SS Sirohi, principal general manager and head, VAS, Bharat Sanchar Nigam

Limited spoke about mobile banking transactions focus on volumes and

diverse content provisioning, mobile advertising, location based services like

GPRS which are in their initial stages. Nearly 7.5 lakh customers are using3G BSNL, currently available in 300 cities and the target is to spread it to

700 cities by July 2010. 50 Million ringtones are downloaded every month.The Indian Premier League shall be merging with Youtube and the cricket

match can be viewed from the cell phone with a staggering 36 camera viewoptions. The speed of 3G is 3.5Mbps if the download speed is enhanced or

the bandwidth is increased, user will have an enriched experience by

downloading movies, games and utilities at a faster rate. He added, new

customers, new platforms, new generators, new operators are joining the

market everyday so the opportunity is tremendous.

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The MVAS will bring about a change in lifestyle of the common man

according to Lloyd Mathias, president and chief marketing officer, Tata

Teleservices Limited, he elaborated his point by giving an example of afisherman from Kerala who has to sell his fish to the dealer at the rate at

which the dealer pays him, however, with the introduction of MVAS, he will

be able to get the best deal available. The chief guest in the conference RNPrabhakar, member, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, (TRAI) had asimilar opinion and focused on how MVAS has become so important andinnovative for the telecom operators with the intense competition bringing

down the ARPU and the tariff. Finally, he concluded the speech saying,

MVAS will bring about a huge change and improve the living standards forall the classes and the market is just ripe for bringing about and to be a part

of the change.