VAS stands for value added services. Which means that after having regular benefits of using a product or services, if some body needs addtional features or services then he/she has to spend extra money over initial package.Let's see the VAS services in telecommunication. You can remember replacing the boring tring tring ring back tone to latest hindi bollywood songs. Similary you are getting live cricket score,downloading games,ringtones etc. These are some entertainment based value added services provided by many telelcom companies. Ok, let see the trends in these services. I'm sure these are one of the emerging way of generating alternative Revenue stream of telecom companies.
VAS in India: Present and Future
• VAS constitutes 7% of of total telecom revenue for Indian operators.
• SMS constituted 55% of VAS revenue in 2006, the growth was majorly driven by reality shows like Indian Idol/Music contest/KBC etc.
• Digital music (including CRBT and ringtones) constitutes 35% of VAS revenue.
• Bollywood and Cricket, email on mobile, music/movie download are the killer content to Bandwidth. But after expected roll out of 3G services by FY2009-10 it will be huge potential market to be targeted.
• Therefore MMS/IVR/Music downloads/Internet Apps/Search will see an upsurge and there would moderate growth in mobile commerce front. [Data Source: http://www.pluggd.in ]
Operators still dominate the revenue sharing arrangement in VAS of the amount paid by end users, 60-70% is kept by operator and rest is shared among event organizers or content providers.VAS revenues will reach USD 2,744 mn by FY2010 (926mn $ by 2007). This gives CAGR at 44% from 2007-2010. [Source: http://www.pluggd.in ]
Growth acceleration will begin in 2009, as various challenges will be overcome, size of mature user base will increase due to increase in telecom subscriber base and familiarity with mobile phones and various services offered by a telecom operator, and telecom companies increased focus on high end user by having suitable content & services (example: Blackberry Phones) and there is increased push for mobile number portability by TRAI.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License,Author,2009.
