New Business Opportunities in Indian Telecom Sector

The Out of Coverage Area!!

Telecom Companies in India

India is one the largest growing telecom market in numbers.It is one of the substantial market in terms of telecom density. It has a strong subscriber base of more than 950 million mobile users and a Tele-density of more than 79%. The explored Indian mobile market worth more than 38.5billion USD .Over the total telecom subscribers, around 65% were from Urban areas. The rural area is yet to be tapped and worth billions. So from this statistical figure we can Indian mobile market is a 'Gold mine' isn't it?. But actually the truth is different. India is one of the weakest mobile market in terms of ARPU (average Revenue Per User). ARPU in India is around 1.9 USD were comparing to the 46.5 USD of US and 32.0 USD of UK. Indian companies are struggling to maintain its revenue and profit stream as the voice revenue is declining per user but at the same time the mvas revenue is inclining. But we have hell lot of opportunity to tackle additional revenue in the telecom sector. When more and more VAS providers added to the value chain and supply system of a telecom provider, the revenue can be increased. But the companies with innovative ideas in this sector were low comparing to other service sectors. I think the main reason for the shortfall is due to the Govt: Policies, Changing mindset and interest of customers and the monopolistic attitude of Telecom Service providers.

Still VAS means wallpapers, ringtones , celebrity photos , news - whether updates etc  for majority of Indians. I now a lot of companies working with unique features but these messages were not rightly transferred to the users. value addition on Education, Banking , Health  etc were some examples. In a brief the companies were not satisfying the real need of the user, but just pushing low priority items to the user with hectic marketing and PR, so that the user were forced to accept that. 

Possible solutions for a start up in mobile sector

I think there are several areas were a start up can grow very fastly and also contribute good revenue for service providers through the following solutions.

Micro Insurance

i think the medical and life insurance coverage of Indians were below 50% of the total population. A huge unexplored market is still open there. The main reason for the insurance is the lack of distribution channel and the unavailability of low premium insurances. The average middle class family is ignoring the insurance due to the premium amount. The premium has to pay either as online or through bank. If it is possible to make the payment collected from his mobile account (Prepaid or post paid) probably the logistics issue can be solved also if the collection is daily or weekly, the premium charge would be much lower for the customer. In this business, the service provider has to minimise his revenue sharing terms. When the number becomes higher that compensate the slashing of revenue share. I think govt doesn't have any regulation for payment till 5000 Rs. But the insurance premium should not exclude 500 rs per month. 

 

Mobile based employment exchange 

This is a good opportunity for a start up to engage in a mobile based employment exchange. In India the blue collar and semi skilled labour database is not available readily. So if somebody can collect the locally available database of masons, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, automobile mechanics, freelance employees , real estate agents etc , and joins them in the application, probably that will be a huge business. The job seeker and the job provider can be part of this network. If somebody needs a labour for a day, he can send an SMS to a shortcode number and that will be charged premium. I have more details if any body interested, i can provide :) .

Audio Books 

 This is a product which is getting very popular now a days and there is immense opportunity for audio books for those who loves to hear stories. This can be educational, motivational or even novels. I actually inspired by this idea from friend Mr. Vinod. In western countries this is getting popularised and in India it is in  nascent stage. So lets collect rare books and use this channel :)

These were some of  the  ideas from me and if you  are interested to know more possibilities just contact me. These ideas for sure i was convinced and i will make a start up if i get an opportunity ;) .

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