Mobile advertising - What? When? How?

The what about Mobile ads is clear - advertisements on the mobile phone. Be it ad sent over an sms, banner ad on the WAP portal, or applications like Affle's SMS2.0 with ads displayed while composing an sms or a jingle CRBT that you hear when you call someone instead of a song ... they are all ads.

When? By when I mean when will mobile advertising go mainstream. Thats a million dollar question. Even the Googles and Microsofts of the world are trying to get an answer to this question. With digital advertising at a small INR 500 cr industry, it is unlikely that mobile which is generally a subset of digital (the other bigger subset being online advertising) will be bigger than this. But then, we cannot forget that in a country with 52 mn internet users and only about 5 mn broadband connections, there are about 350 mn mobile subscribers (we have no count of how many actually use the mobile phone if we take into account multiple households with only one mobile). Mobile advertising might be the disruptive idea that might change the landscape. I don't say this. I have read and reread and again reread about this. And I also sort of believe in this.

How? I think SMS is definitely going to be big. IVR with ads will be another market. WAP - it will pick up. And I think even though only the rich guys will access mobile internet, these are the guys who everyone wants to target to sell their products. So medium is irrelevant. But it is bound to happen. 1 year? 2 years? or 3 years? My answer - one of these three. But definitely not beyond.

Mobile - the great leveler

Whether you have a Rs. 34,000 handset or a Reliance Classic bought at Rs. 777 (the 8th wonder of the world - how could someone sell phones so cheap in India with no customer loyalty) - you have to share the same spectrum. You can be on Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance, Tata, Aircel, HFCL Connect, Idea, BSNL, MTNL or whoever.

You can be on a Mercedes Benz on a bumpy Delhi road and feel good that at least I have the best suspension in the world cushioned / protected against the potholes and unrepaired dugs (is dugs an English word? I mean to say they dig the road for whatever reason and then just leave it - if you've been in this side of the world, I am sure you got my point, right). But with handsets - no matter what the model, quality of service is the same. Of course you have all the jing bangs like MP3 player, 5Megapixel, trackball, larger screen, and of course this new concept of feather touch screen like iPhone, and all those fancy things that iPhones and Xperias and Omnias have introduced (why was I talking about all these things? I got lost in trying to summarize all these new features in my head that I lost track of why I was saying this ... in fact I forgot to mention FM radio which even big business phone users look for in new phones they are buying ... I remember) but end of the day, what is the phone for? Talk. Voice calls. Delay sensitive - voice. Real time - voice. Some congestion in the spectrum pipe with 335 millon users trying to call and %#&$*((%#@.... your can no more hear your dear friend / credit card bugger / mom / dad / friend / so called boyfriend or girlfriend / prospective job option (in this time of hiring freeze) / neighbour / chacha / mama / accountant / ... / ... / ....

Do you think Sheila Dixit, Chief Minister of Delhi, or in fact Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India or even Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Airtel or Anil Dhirubahi Ambani, son of Dhirubhai Ambani ... oopps! he has made a name for himself ... the Chaiman of ADAG, holding company of Reliance - do you think they have a priority in the queing and their call never gets dropped?!? I don't think so. I do not think either the GSM or the CDMA 1x protocol allows for this. So guys we are all the same. The sweeper with a handset, you, me, PM Singh, Mr. Mittal, Mr. Ambani - we are all the same when it comes to voice calls. Mobile - don't you think it's a great leveler.

Airtel with Nokia or Nokia with Airtel

Airtel is the leading operator in India with over 52 million subscribers. It operates the GSM network - has upgraded to GPRS and EDGE. There is no 3G yet in India, mainly because of policy issues, i.e., government issues.

Nokia is the leader in handsets in India. It caters to everyone - right from the bottom of the pyramid with INR 1,100 (USD 27) handsets to the rich & the famous with INR 30,500 (USD 760).

Recently I saw an ad on TV where it says "Get an Airtel connection on your Nokia". That got me wondering who is paying for the ad. Airtel, Nokia or both?

For Airtel, its a good deal.

For Nokia, not sure if they are benefitting or loosing. Today everyone gets a Nokia and decides which connection to get - Airtel, Vodafone or Idea. This is what I believe. But is the Nokia Airtel tie up hinting that market dynamics have changed? Is Nokia concerned about bundled offers from other operators? Is Vodafone Magic-box with Vodafone branded ZTE phones @ INR 1199 a threat. Does this mean that handset vendors are looking at handset bunding or are operators offering bundling that is forcing handset vendors to partner with operators. Did Nokia and Airtel plann this smart move by advertising together without any subsdidy?

Change is good

Change is good - this was Vodafone's catch line when they rebranded themselves from Hutch.

I thought it was beautiful. And I guess it is. But how often is it that you are the one whose life goes through changes and you still think "change is good"

If only change was good why would there be a big hog wash over the spectrum. Dept. of Telecommunications wants to make a change by increasing the spectrum fee or auctioning the spectrum at an awfully high price and there are so many court notices by everyone to everyone - TRAI, Relience, Airtel, COAI, AUSPI.

So is change good?

Life & Marriage vis-a-vie Telecomm India

I work mostly around telecom and during the day today a friend of mine sends me the following:

Life and Marriage
Life before marriage is like AIRTEL : 'Aisi Azadi Aur Kahan'
Life during engagement is like RELIANCE : 'Kar Lo Duniya Muthi Mein'
Life during Honeymoon is like IDEA : 'A wife can change your life'
Life after one year of marriage is like HUTCH : 'Whereever you go your wife follows'
Life after 10 years of marriage is like MTNL/BSNL - 'The subscriber is not reachable'

I could so relate to it. These are the catch lines of the different mobile service ads.
Full credits to the owner of the analogy.

Its been all great ... but until when?

More than 7 million users a month - July 07, I think. Reasons being - lower price due to high competition, lack of fixed line connection and improved lifestyle for all.

Have you ever seen a regular Hindi movie? Its all good and good and then the boooom .... something goes wrong - villain appears, someone has an accident or an old boyfriend shows up unexpectedly. The theme changes - its now a sad story.

Same will be the story with Indian Telecom! I think the good part is almost finished. The bad guys have made their appearance. The main issue ... Spectrum. Who has it ... Defence Dept. Telecom Ministry has requested, then asked, then ordered that the spectrum be released. But why should they? They have had it for free for as long as they can remember. Now suddenly someone orders the Defence Dept. of the country. Irrelevant is what they have and they need to give. But they are the defenders of the nation and how dare somebody orders them! And given that Defence Dept releases the spectrum, the Telecom Dept does not know how, to whom, when and at what price to sell/auction the spectrum.

Operators are willing to pay for the spectrum needed. They have seen the value. They have made the money and are willing to risk more money.

Who suffers? As always the people - you, me and us. And this case, may be the nation as well. Cell phones have changed the lifestyles of so many from roadside vegetable vendors to freelance cooks to on-the-move CEOs. Connectivity has reached to far off villages who thought talking to anyone in the city meant walking for days to first see then talk. Definitions changed. Talk could happen with small devices, the so called "mobile". Airtel was everywhere. Reliance brought the tariff down. Anyone and everyone could afford a "mobile".

Will operators suffer - Not at all. They invested. Their ROI (return on investment) has been spectacular - way more than what they had anticipated. With no new spectrum, they will squeeze as many users as possible in the given spectrum. They will increase tariff. Hutch and Airtel has already increased SMS prices. Thenafter they will move on. End of the day, they are entrepreneurs who knows how to see the opportunity and make money. They have made enough to finance their next venture. If not telecom, they will do petroleum, steel, retail ... whatever will make them money.

Government - they come and they go. Need I say more?

So, with the lack of spectrum resulting in low voice quality and many dropped calls ... the bad guy has definitely made an impact. Now we got to wait and see if the "hero" - Telecomm India will be able to come up victorious or will it just be great growth story we will tell our kids and grandkids.

Number portability

When will number portability start? I am sick of Airtel - they charge you for so much more than you use. And to see your complete call lists you need to pay Rs. 75. So what if they charge Rs.1 per call ... they know of ways to make money.

If there was number portability - I would definitely not be AIRTEL today. May be HUTCH? May be MTNL? May be even Reliance ... even if I would have to buy a CDMA handset.

Have you had any bad experience with your operator? Want to tell me before I make another mistake .... ?!?!?

Telecom Operators in India

I use Airtel. And I know about Hutch because of its $20billion deal. Reliance is a CDMA operator. But I wanted to know who else are big players in the telecom field. And this is what I found ...

I did not know about BPLmobile. I think Aircel is big in South India and is also venturing into WiMax. Dolphin - not heard about this. And ... I see that TataIndicom is missing in the logo collection above. Any guesses as to where I might have found the logo collection? Think think ... its a big well known website!