onMobile bets on 3G boom for VAS push in India

OnMobile Global, one of the world’s largest mobile value-added services (VAS) companies with operations across 55 countries, had taken a beating in India after its CEO Arvind Rao was expelled last year. However, under Mouli Ramanan, its co-founder and managing director, the company has been able to rise again. Ramanan tells Beryl Menezes about OnMobile’s journey ahead. Excerpts from the interview:

OnMobile has been aggressively targeting emerging markets, including India. What is happening on this front?While caller tunes, which contribute about 70% to our overall revenues, are primary focus, we are now in the process of rolling out other services in the areas of music and sports as well. For example, we acquired Livewire, which offers high quality, personalised service at low cost, in the US in July. We also recently won a large deal with MTN, the largest operator in Middle East and Africa, with 200 million users, and we have a contract to roll out services in 22 countries where MTN is present. Latin America and Africa contributes 26% to revenues, and , in the last 1-1.5 years, besides emerging markets, we are also focusing on rolling out VAS services in Europe and North America.

How do you see growth in India in the coming years?Out of 120 million users globally, we have 45 million in India. While in the last 1-1.5 years, OnMobile has witnessed a de-growth of 20-22% in India, due to regulatory intervention for promotional services and the downturn in the telecom and VAS industry, this does not reflect the opportunities that lie ahead. With 800 million mobile users in the country, a lot of them first time mobile internet users, we are seeing a lot of demand for VAS services on the mobile in local languages. There are also enough developers who want to provide services to these customers.

The ecosystem being developed for anybody who wants to provide these services. In the next 2-3 years, we will see a lot more services on mobile.

Revenue sharing has always been a matter of concern between VAS players and telcos in India...Since the last one year, operators are beginning to realise the importance of getting more service providers and developers on board to provide services and so are open to giving more revenue share today. From 30-40% earlier, the revenue share is now moving up to 60-65% today. Service providers also have the freedom to provide and market the service themselves, while operators only provide the billing platform.

source: www.dndia.com

Sandvine Provides Econet Wireless Zimbabwe With Usage-Based Plans

Waterloo, Ontario — Sandvine, (TSX:SVC) a leading provider of intelligent broadband network solutions for fixed and mobile operators, today announced it is providing Econet Wireless Zimbabwe with network policy control products to roll out new service packages for the growing demand for mobile data. Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, the largest subsidiary of Econet Group, serves over 8.5 million subscribers on its 3G network and became a Sandvine customer in March 2013. Sandvine is the market leader in Africa with customers in 20 countries across the continent.

Econet Wireless Zimbabwe is using Sandvine's Usage Management product with plug-and-play capabilities that will enable them to roll out new revenue-generating services for their pre-paid and post-paid subscribers. Sandvine was selected based on its ability to fulfill the technical requirements of usage-based charging over Gy and policy enforcement over Gx, which are critical for rolling out new services such as roaming notifications, bill shock prevention, family plans and data bundles.

"Sandvine's technical accuracy and scalability gives us confidence that as our network and subscriber adoption continues to grow, so too will our service offerings," said Leon de Fleuriot, General Manager: Products and Services, Econet Wireless Zimbabwe. "We are committed to maintaining our leadership position in Zimbabwe by rolling out new services that meet the growing demand for mobile Internet data across the country."

Sandvine recently published its semi-annual Global Internet Phenomena Report identifying that video accounts for less than 6% of traffic in mobile networks in Africa but is expected to quickly grow towards the 40% levels seen in other regions.

"The African market is especially unique, as most users are connecting to the Internet for the first time through mobile devices, and using applications like BBM, Facebook and WhatsApp," said Tom Donnelly, COO, Sales and Global Services, Sandvine. "We expect that Africa will be a fast video adopter and forward-thinking operators like Econet Wireless Zimbabwe are rolling out creative device-and application-based service tiers to drive revenue and increase adoption of mobile Internet."

Join Sandvine at AfricaCom booth P17 for more information on usage based billing and network policy control.

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