Uninor, a joint venture between Unitech and Norway’s Telenor, said it is planning to start services in five more hubs (each hub includes a few circles), within the next three months.
Speaking to Telecom Yatra, Allan Bonke, executive vice president, Delhi hub, Uninor, said, “Since we operate as hubs, we are planning to get five more hubs within the next three months.”
The company holds a pan-India unified access service license to offer mobile telephony service in each of India’s 22 circles. It has also received spectrum to roll out these services in 21 of the 22 circles. At present, its services are available in the eight circles of UP (West), UP (East), Bihar, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.
Uninor has been active on voice but has not been doing much on the VAS front. Bonke said, “In the future, you will see a lot of VAS coming from us. We have VAS already, but it is very small. We will be doing a lot but I can’t tell anything right now. It will be a surprise for both our customers and competitors.”
The operator has not followed its competitors to launch per second and per minute billing. Bonke says, “Our tariffs have been a big success in India. We did not take to per second billing as we thought that it is not going to be a differentiator for us. We want to be competitive but we would like to do it at a fast speed and cost effectively. We want to have competitive tariffs.”
Uninor currently has more than 200,000 retailers across India and says that over 90 per cent of its retail presence is complete.
The company is targeting an eight per cent market share in India by 2018. Uninor has recently received the fourth and final investment of about Rs 2,000 crore from Telenor. In all, Telenor has injected more than Rs 6,000 crore of new equity into the company.
Uninor to launch services in 5 more hubs within 3 months
Nearly 14 mn additions take GSM subscriber base to 421 mn
As per the figures released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) on GSM subscribers for March, almost 14 million new subscribers were added in the month, taking the GSM subscriber base to 421.86 million.
Maximum additions came from Circle B with close to 5.8 million GSM additions. Circle B had shown maximum GSM subscriber addition in the month of February as well with 5.5 million additions. Circle A registered about 4.6 million additions while circle C and the metros added 2.4 million and over 1.2 million subscribers, respectively.
The figures also show that UP (East) registered maximum additions at almost 1.5 million new subscribers. This was followed by Tamil Nadu (excluding Chennai) with over 1.1 million additions and Bihar with a million new subscribers. Bihar had registered the highest number of additions in February with nearly 1.3 million additions.
Among operators, Vodafone registered the maximum number of additions at over 3.6 million, taking its subscriber base to almost 101 million. Bharti Airtel, with an additional 3 million subscribers remained at the top with a total subscriber base of about 127.6 million. BSNL, Aircel and Idea Cellular added nearly 2.5 million, 2 million and 1.7 million subscribers, respectively.
While S Tel, a new entrant, added about 280,000 subscribers to reach the one million subscribers mark, Uninor, which is also a relatively new operator, had 700,000 additions as compared to 1 million subscriber additions in February.
According to TRAI, Circle A consists of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Maharashtra and Goa. Circle B comprises Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (East), Uttar Pradesh (West), West Bengal, Sikkim and Lakshadweep. Circle C comprises Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Assam, the North East, Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. The metros are Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.
Mobile TV: The global experience (Part 2)
The mobile TV market has witnessed significant growth, globally, over the past few years. Apart from India, mobile TV is currently offered in South Korea, Japan, Africa, USA, Europe, China, Malaysia and Brazil, among other countries. Mobile TV services have been launched in a limited area around the world and only to a targeted audience.
As per a February report by market research company RNCOS, the number of mobile TV subscribers in the world is expected to grow by 45 per cent between 2009 and 2013 and it is predicted to touch 450 million by the end of 2013. The report also says that Asia Pacific will dominate the global mobile TV market and constitute around 67 per cent of the global mobile TV subscriber base by 2013.
South Africa’s Vodacom had launched the first mobile TV service on 3G handsets in December 2005. In June 2009, Nokia Siemens Networks started offering UAE-based mobile TV provider DM TV with a digital video broadcasting handheld (DVB-H) solution in Ghana, Kenya, Namibia and Nigeria.
In South Korea, mobile TV is largely divided into satellite digital mobile broadcast (DMB) and terrestrial DMB. Although satellite DMB initially had more content, terrestrial DMB has gained much wider popularity because it is free and is included as a feature in most mobile handsets sold in the country today.
Japan started offering mobile TV services in 2006 and broadcasters Nippon Television, Fuji Television and TV Asahi were among the companies that signed partnerships with mobile operators. According to Hong Kong-based analyst Thomas Crampton, “In Japan, regulation saying that broadcasts to mobile must be the same as those on TV was lifted in 2008. Thus, a key driver for new media platforms is exclusive content that people can’t get anywhere else. There is another Japanese law that stops people recording (TV) programs in their homes, but allows them to do so using their mobile phones. While broadcasters transmit their channels live, many people are watching TV on their mobiles in a non-linear way.”
In April 2007, broadcasters in the USA joined together with the intention of introducing a single standard for device manufacturers to deliver mobile TV. This move brought Samsung and LG together in a partnership. In May 2008, the two companies announced their plan to take a possible mobile TV standard to the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ASTC), which establishes standards for digital TV transmission. In December 2008, the ATSC published ATSC Mobile DTV as a possible standard and after six months, this standard was made final. As of now, some TV stations in Chicago, Washington DC and other States are broadcasting ATSC Mobile DTV as trials. The group has announced it will perform consumer trials in Washington DC, and more tests will take place in 2009 and early 2010, with products expected to hit the market in 2010.
Recently, some broadcasters in the USA announced that they are forming a joint venture to develop a national mobile service, including live and on-demand video, local and national news and entertainment from both TV and print companies, and that they will pool spectrum to be able to reach about 150 million USA-based consumers. Their goal is for broadcasters to be able to transmit the same TV signals that they do today, to mobile devices such as phones, cars and portable consumer electronics, without much financial investment. This is expected to further assist the growth of mobile TV there.
Samsung launches handsets integrated with mobile TV
The Korean handset manufacturing giant has announced two new variants of its Corby CDMA and Metro series phones – Corby TV and Metro TV. Both the handsets are CDMA devices and will support SIM cards of all CDMA service providers.
The devices also come integrated with Broadband mobile TV capabilities, hence the name Corby TV and Metro TV. The handsets come with an application MimobiTV which will allow users to watch live or recorded video content. The App has been developed by Apalya Technologies, a mobile TV provider in India.
Corby TV supports mobile TV streaming of both CDMA 1X and EVDO 3G mobile technologies. The handset is OMH (open market handset) enabled and supports all CDMA network providers who support the service. Corby TV and Metro TV support over 40 live channels and over 10 other on demand channels enabling the user to watch their favorite channels even while they are mobile.
In a press statement, Ranjit Yadav, director, mobile and IT, Samsung India Electronics, said, “Consumers can even watch the ongoing cricket matches live on their Corby TV.”
In fact, for Corby Speed users Samsung also offers free software upgrade to Corby TV. Metro TV boasts of mobile broadband capabilities of up to 2.4 Mbps and multimedia downloads directly to the Micro SD, or memory card.
While the Corby TV is priced at Rs 9,699, the Metro will be available for Rs 6,999. Other than this, Samsung has also introduced some promotional offers for Tata Photon Plus and Reliance Mobile users who wish to buy the latest devices.
Tata Photon Plus users can avail free Mobile TV subscription for 3 months from the date of activation plus 15 GB free data usage per month, up to 2 months for postpaid and 10 GB data usage free for 2 months on prepaid.
Reliance mobile users will be offered free mobile TV subscription for 2 months from the date of activation plus up to 15 GB free data usage per month, up to 2 months for postpaid and up to 10 GB free data usage for 1 month for prepaid users.
With 3G round the corner, hopes up for mobile TV (Part 1)
The Indian telecom industry is awaiting 3G rollout this year and many services are expected to gain traction once the advanced network is in place. Mobile TV is one of these.
There is no better illustration of the mobile TV opportunity in India than the interest generated by the Indian Premier League (IPL). The cricket tournament attracted over 500,000 subscribers on the IPL mobile site in less than 15 days with over 30,000 users accessing it simultaneously. Apalya Technologies, a mobile TV service provider in India, feels the industry is poised for the big leap. Sathyajit Divakaran, vice president, sales and marketing, Apalya Technologies, says, “The action is already on. Over four million views have happened in this short time.” Apalya is the exclusive live mobile video provider of the IPL for three years.
The Indian government recently gave approval to 74 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in this industry and has also accepted the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI’s) recommendation that the service provider should have freedom to choose the technology for this service. Moreover, 3G auctions have begun and telcos will soon start rolling out their next generation networks.
These new developments have made the industry quite optimistic about the growth of mobile TV in India.
Divakaran is of the view that if there are any constraints, they are purely network related. “The launch of 3G by private operators is going to make all the difference. The hockey stick curve is waiting to take off. Content partners also need to understand the huge scope of this technology and the advantages of reaching the customers early on this platform,” he added.
A player in the digital pay TV space, UK-based NDS Group, echoes this. Alan Dishington, general manager, NDS India, says, “The advent of 3G in India is for sure going to heavily drive mobile TV in India and will make this market quite attractive not only for service and content providers but for technology enablers too. Mobile TV will emerge over the next few years to grow to a value of more than $50 billion globally by 2013. The rapidly growing 3G market and continually declining operators’ average revenue per user ( ARPU) from conventional services will be the key factors in propelling the growth of global mobile TV market.”
On the future of mobile TV in India, Dishington said, “At the outset, Indian metros and urban cities would be the target with the gradual penetration to other semi-urban towns and cities. Precisely after overcoming primary obstacles related to 3G policy; spectrum allocation; cost of mobile TV enabled handsets; content management for mobile TV and speed of video streaming, the technology is projected to be a huge success in India.”
An Idea Cellular spokesperson told Telecom Yatra, “Mobile TV service is gaining popularity in India but there is still tremendous scope of better user experience which can be enabled with high speed mobile broadband. The off-take of mobile TV service is likely to go up in India with increased awareness, coupled with expansion of network. The introduction of 3G services will further strengthen the delivery capability of mobile TV services.”
Mobile TV enables transmission of on demand, recorded and live television content to a mobile phone. It can either be through broadcast or by streaming of content by a mobile operator on a user’s handset. In streaming, low Bandwidth causes the mobile TV experience to be hindered if multiple handsets are accessing the same programme at the same time. In a normal scenario, there are several players who work in the mobile TV business such as content and broadcast companies, mobile service providers, infrastructure providers, handset manufacturers and technology providers. All these players work together to enable TV viewing on mobile phones.
Speaking on mobile TV technologies suited for India, Dishington said that video streaming technology has been identified as one of the key factors driving the growth of mobile TV in India. The fact has also been stated in Global Mobile TV Forecast to 2013, a report by Indian research firm RNCOS. According to the report, the number of mobile TV subscribers globally using streaming technology will constitute around 53 per cent of the total mobile TV subscriber base by the end of 2013, up from around 46 per cent at the end of 2009.
“Several technologies such as DVBH (digital video broadcasting – handheld) and RTSP (real time streaming protocol) ) support mobile TV service. However, a lot is dependent on the handset being used to access the service. Since the display capabilities of mobile phones is not the same as traditional TV screens, the content needs to be formatted before delivery. The service is restricted to high-end handsets, so far, which support live video streaming capabilities. Capabilities of the network and handset are equally important for a rich consumer experience,” added the Idea spokesperson.
Among telecom operators, mobile TV services are currently being offered by Idea Cellular, Vodafone, Tata Indicom, Aircel, BSNL and Airtel. Idea TV by Idea Cellular works on the GPRS network and allows both prepaid and postpaid subscribers to watch channels such as Times Now, Zoom, TV9, MaaTV, India TV and CNBC. There are three rental plans – Rs 10 per day, Rs 50 per channel per month and Rs 150 for all channels per month.
Another key operator, Vodafone, provides TV clips on mobile phones through Vodafone Live, the operator’s mobile site, and also allows users to receive TV listings on their GPRS-enabled handsets. Aircel offers 31 channels through its mobile TV service and subscribers are required to pay a monthly rental of Rs 49 for unlimited usage. BSNL, along with Apalya, provides TV to those of its EDGE/GPRS customers who use a GSM phone, at the same tariff as Idea does. Apalya has tied up with media companies like NDTV, AajTak, Cartoon Network, Times Now, Zoom, Bindass, ETV, TV9, India Vision, MaaTV, India TV and CNN-Mobile to deliver content for an end to end mobile TV and video solution to BSNL’s customers. It offers both live TV and on demand video services.
Live IPL commentary on Uninor
Uninor has launched an IPL match commentary service at Rs 5 per day. Users can choose an ongoing match of their choice and listen to live commentary on it.
The company also recently rolled out its VAS Infoline service via which a customer can change caller ringback tones any number of times for Rs 10, subscribe to subscription pack services and also subscribe to the above mentioned cricket pack. In an official statement issued by the company, it expressed its plan to focus on addressing regional needs and specific segment requirements. It also plans to launch various entertainment related value added services.
Many operators have launched products and services to cash in on the IPL. For example, Idea Cellular came out with Idea Oongli Cricket where viewers are asked a question based on the occurrences in an ongoing IPL match.
Vodafone, on the other hand, came up with a star of the match competition and also announced that all Vodafone customers can purchase DLF IPL season III tickets through Vodafone M-Shop. The operator had also launched an IPL special prepaid recharge offer for its customers wherein they could get bonus minutes equal to the highest runs scored by a batsman in an IPL match on the previous day.
GSM usage in minutes still declining; CDMA sees an upsurge
There has been constant decline in the minutes of usage (MOU) of GSM subscribers in India, while the MOU of CDMA subscribers has gone up in the last quarter of 2009. This trend is based on the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) figures on the telecom sector’s performance from October to December 2009.
GSM MOU stood at 496 minutes per subscriber per month at the end of December 2008. It dropped by 12 minutes to 484 minutes at the end of March 2009 and by 30 minutes to 454 by the end of June 2009. The MOU further declined by 31 minutes to 423 in the following quarter ended September 2009 and by a further 12 minutes in the next quarter, bringing down the MOU to 411 minutes at the end of 2009.
The trend seems surprising, especially in the wake of falling prices. Citing a reason for this trend an industry expert told Telecom Yatra, “There are more than 10 million new GSM subscribers in a month. These new subscribers initially show a low usage pattern (in terms of MOU) which takes about four to five months to escalate. Also, the usage of multiple SIMs has become quite popular. Users are buying multiple SIM cards but it does not mean they will call.”
Among CDMA users the MOU dropped by 14 minutes from 371 minutes for the quarter ended December 2008 to 357 minutes at the end of March 2009. CDMA MOU saw a further decline of 15 minutes, falling to 342 at the end of June 2009 and to 308 minutes at the end of September 2009 due to a drop of a further 34 minutes. However, usage went up by 10 minutes in the last quarter of 2009, reaching 318 minutes.
Another industry expert shared, “The emergence of new CDMA players, like MTS, who offered free calling within their network has majorly contributed to the increase in MOU during the last quarter of 2009.” MTS had initially launched with an offer of a million free minutes distributed to new subscribers.
Highest usage in terms of minutes came from circle C with 462 minutes for GSM and 416 minutes for CDMA services, while this circle lagged behind as far as SMS usage is concerned. For GSM services, outgoing SMS per user per month stood at 11 and for CDMA the number stood at 5.
Circle A contributed with 392 minutes of usage per month and 55 outgoing SMS for GSM services while CDMA contributed 281 minutes of usage and 15 SMS per month. Circle B recorded 406 minutes of usage and 18 SMS per subscriber per month for GSM and 309 minutes and 9 SMS for CDMA.
Usage in the metros was 436 minutes and 26 SMS for GSM and 356 minutes and 25 SMS for CDMA services, per subscriber every month.
Another interesting trend is the surge in SMS usage for both GSM and CDMA services. Outgoing SMS per subscriber among GSM users went up by almost 10 per cent from 29 in September 2009 to 32 in December that year. This pushed up operators’ revenue from SMSs by 1 per cent. It increased from 4.7 per cent in September 2009 to 5.7 per cent in December 2009.
CDMA saw a growth of almost 37 per cent, with outgoing SMSs per subscriber per month going up from 10 in September 2009 to 14 in December that year. As a result total revenue from SMS went up by 0.5 per cent from 5.1 per cent in September 2009 to 5.6 per cent in December 2009.
This can be attributed to the various free SMS and 1 paisa per SMS schemes introduced by operators during the period.
Circle A comprises Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Circle B includes Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (East), Uttar Pradesh (West) and West Bengal. And Circle C comprises Bihar, Orissa, Assam, North East, Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.
Opera mobile browser now has over 50 million users worldwide
Norway-based Opera Software has announced that over 100 million users are using its Browser worldwide. While half of these are desktop users, the other half use the browser on their mobiles.
The company announced last month that Opera Mini served 50 million unique users in a month in January. It witnessed a 150 per cent growth from 20 million unique users in January 2009 to 50 million unique users in January this year.
The Opera browser can be used on Windows, Mac and Linux computers while Opera Mini can be loaded on a wide variety of handsets. In addition, many users browse the web using Opera loaded on their game consoles, TVs and set-top boxes.
On the occasion, Jon von Tetzchner, co founder, Opera Software, said in a statement, “Our focus on speed, security, innovation and usability continues to yield results. We always listen to the needs and wants of our users and they reward us by choosing Opera.”
According to StatCounter, a web statistics tool, Opera lags behind Internet Explorer (which is still the most preferred browser), Firefox, Chrome and Safari in terms of worldwide usage. However, Opera Mini is considered the most preferred mobile browser worldwide with almost 28 per cent market share.
In India, Opera’s mobile browser has a market share of about 69 per cent, followed by Nokia’s browser which has close to 23 per cent market share.
MTS rolls out services in Haryana
MTS, the mobile services brand of Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL), has announced the launch of its services in Haryana. The telecom operator has rolled out its CDMA service in four districts of Haryana -Panipat, Sonipat, Rohtak and Bahadurgarh – and will cover the entire circle shortly.
Speaking to Telecom Yatra, T Narsimhan, deputy chief executive officer, SSTL, said, “This is the first time we are launching our voice services in Haryana. Till now we had not launched services is any small towns.”
Haryana subscribers can avail a million minutes free for life offer for calls within the MTS network or at half paisa per second for other local calls.
The telecom operator is also offering its mobile internet service MBlaze on the prepaid platform in these districts and is offering free download as part of the inauguration. It is also allowing free internet browsing on certain websites like MakeMyTrip, Wikipedia and Yahoo India.
SSTL is a joint venture between Sistema of Russia and the Shyam Group of India and is licensed to provide mobile telephony services in all the 22 circles across the country. It has over four million subscribers in 11 circles, where it currently operates – Rajasthan, Bihar and Jharkhand, Kolkata, West Bengal and Sikkim, Chennai and Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Mumbai, Maharashtra and Goa, Haryana, and Delhi NCR.
Vodafone Essar achieves 100 million subscriber mark
Vodafone Essar announced on Thursday that it has achieved a landmark 100 million subscribers in India. The pan India operator became the third to achieve this milestone in the country. The first operator in India to have achieved it is Bharti Airtel, which counted 100 million wireless subscribers in May 2009 and had a wireless subscriber base of more than 124 million at the end of February this year. Reliance Communications achieved the feat recently in March.
Vodafone had a subscriber base of more than 94 million at the end of January and more than 97 million at the end of February.
The achievement makes Vodafone the fifth operator in the world to serve over 100 million subscribers in a single country. The company also claims to have strengthened its position as India’s second largest operator in terms of revenue.
Marten Pieters, managing director and chief executive officer, Vodafone Essar, said in a press statement, “This is a significant achievement for us and reflects the trust customers have bestowed on the company.”
He also added that the company had invested over Rs 20,000 crore to expand customer service in India.
The company is present across all telecom circles and has surpassed the 100 million customer base. The press release stated that around 60 per cent of the operator’s subscriber additions now come from upcountry areas. It also has a distribution reach of about 1.2 million outlets.