I was invited to speak at Mobile VAS Asia 2009 conference at Singapore a month ago. This conference is one of the platforms where the hottest issues in Mobile VAS space were presented, debated and deliberated by the most interesting experts in the industry. I had an opportunity to share my2cents on the state of mobile value added services in Rural India.

 As many of us know, India has the second highest mobile subscribers in the world. By 2012, 60 per cent or close to 400 million of India’s projected 650 million total mobile subscriber base, will be rural subscribers. Interestingly MVAS revenue is projected to contribute 12% operator’s revenue in 2012.

Now the question is how far do Value added services reach Rural India subscriber? Looking into the usage statistics, we see hardly 30% have learned the art of SMS. Considering the low adult lieteracy, it is hard to introduce SMS/WAP based servies in hinterlands. Since most of the handsets support nothing but english, messaging services are still unused by the users who even know how to read/write in their mother tongue. India has 22 such official languages!

I advocated intelligent speech applications/IVR that work in local languages could increase the usage of such services and deliver good user experience and value. Rural call centers could be one more option to offer services with human touch. Further I discussed some of the interesting tele usage pattern in the bottom of the pyramid. I am sure still you guys must be wondering what could be the connection between morse code and mobile services. Well, take a look at my slide.

Conveying messages through missed calls, truly a jugaad usage of  mobile to communicate without spending a penny :) While the operators are looking for increased ARPU, Users are finding new way to cut cost. I am quite interested to explore more such usage patterns, let me know if you spot such thing!