New Revenue Models for Indian Mobile Operators

Indian mobile operators have long been concerned by disintermediation: the intrusion by third parties into the originally closed relationship between operator and customer. But in 2009, mobile phone users are expected to download from sites managed by mobile device manufacturers, consumer electronics firms, and software houses.

Making his presentation on Trends in Telecommunication Services , Chetan Kumar Shivakumar, technical manager, Alcatel-Lucent said, The global financial turmoil has added new dimension to global telecommunication trends. Smart phones explosion in 2008 and continuation is 2009 adds to on-demand information and computing. Also recent Intel acquisition of WindRiver has shows that interest in this space is hugee.

Shivakumar said although operators are unlikely to earn any direct revenue from third-party application downloads, there are several options for them to generate income from downloads, including device back up; management of application transfers; and specialized services provided to third-party stores.

So mobile operator might target areas like offering hosted services by adding presence and location sensitivity to application; Add collaboration and conferencing services to application and Hosted gaming services. Besides mobile operator can offer application and device backup service by charging application service to subscriber s phone bills or by launching their own application stores. A slippery slope here are many free application out their, pain of managing store should generate enough revenue, he said.

Operators may be also able to earn revenues from developers and consumers by wholesaling presence and location-sensitivity into services. Consumers will benefit from application stores, but should be mindful of the seemingly inexorable risk that some applications may be contaminated by viruses.

CXOtoday