India is one of the fastest growing mobile markets in South Asia with a huge potential for growth amongst the rural population, an industry analyst has said.
According to Lavanya Palani Batcha, Industry Analyst for ICT Practice at Frost & Sullivan, South Asia and Middle East, the mobile value-added services (VAS) market is set to grow at a strong CAGR of 16.6 per cent from 2008 to 2015.
With tumbling voice tariffs contributing to declining Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) rates, mobile operators are actively pushing for growth of the non-voice value-added services market, the analyst noted.
“Despite the economic uncertainties, the mobile services market in South Asian and Middle East countries continues to sustain a growth path, especially in countries such as India,” Mr. Batcha said.
The trend in regional areas across countries is equally interesting, he added.
“Mobile markets across regions are intensely competitive and some of them have reached saturation in terms of penetration of addressable markets,” he said.
At present, mobile voice revenues constitute the largest chunk of operator’s revenues, relegating mobile data revenues to a miniscule percentage.
In the case of messaging, the popularity of Peer to Application (P2A) SMS, where mobile subscribers respond to an application such as voting through SMS for a TV program, is on the rise.
