Tata Tele sees the ‘value’ imperative

MUMBAI: The message is loud and clear for telecom operators — with voice calls getting cheaper, they must focus on value added services to offset the decline in average revenue per user (Arpu).

CDMA-based cellular service provider Tata Teleservices Ltd, for one, is looking to get 15% of its revenues from value added services by the end of 2009 fiscal, as against 9.4% in October, a company official said.

The value added services bouquet includes music, ringtones, wallpapers, video clips, games, astrology and even SMS. Gaming, caller tunes and mobile internet are among the most sought after services, the official said.

According to recent estimates by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, the mobile value added services market will touch Rs 8,200 crore by the fiscal-end, up from Rs 4,950 crore in the last.

Among the various segments, ringtone downloads at 600,000-800,000 per day are growing by 50% annually. Music downloads, on the other hand, are expected to clock a 75% growth this fiscal, from about Rs 300 crore last fiscal.

Meanwhile, Tata Teleservices and Qualcomm are toasting to the success of data services based on the latter’s BREW platform.

Data services now permeate even low-end devices because of the Qualcomm Single Chip solution. Pankaj Sethi, president (VAS), Tata Teleservices Ltd said, “The BREW platform has helped us bring data offerings to our subscribers and grow our Arpu from value added services to 9.4%.”

Tata Tele also has an exclusive agreement with Opera Software, whose product allows access to the Web on any device.