Mobile VAS Market to Touch $5 Billion Mark

July 8, 2006

NEW DELHI: Mobile entertainment is set to become a $5 billion business in India over the next two years according to experts at VAS (value added service) India 2006 conference.

According to Mr Dilip Singh, CEO, Telenity, value added services was providing 10 per cent of the total revenues for telecom operators at present but it is expected to be 20-30 per cent per annum in the near future. Globally the mobile phone industry was already raking in $585 billion as revenues from value added services. "Location services, messaging, entertainment and business productivity were the four areas in which VAS was making a huge difference to work and leisure," said Mr Singh while speaking at the VAS conference.

Qualcomm President for India and SAARC, Mr Kanwalinder Singh said 3G, which would be deployed in the country soon, would provide a three-fold increase in data consumption. Qualcomm was providing laboratory facilities for small Indian developers to work on developing such applications on BREW platform of CDMA technology.

Pointing out that demand for VAS was growing in India at 60 per cent per annum, Mr Arvind Rao, CEO, OnMobile said that demand for ring back tone alone was over eight to nine million everyday. Over 20 million people were using multi-media services. VAS demand would further go up as local languages start getting used.