Archive for the ‘Mobile’ Category
MoMo’s yearly roundup and mobility predictions
Yet another of those predictions and lists for 2009. For a change, I like this set of predictions and I am planning to attend the event.
Mobile Monday Mumbai is organizing their last meetup (they meet every month/alternate month and engage in discussions around mobility industry in India) in an unconfrence style (as compared to gyaan sessions that they do regularly) and are asking every participant to come up with
What were the most important developments in 2008 for Indian telecom?
What will be the key mobility trends in 2009?
For me, two most important developments in 2008 for Indian telecom were
- 3G becoming a reality in India (although it would take not less than 6 months to actually become common place).
- Spectrum sales to new telcos. Although telecom minister A. Raja came under fire for selling the spectrum too cheap, I think new players in the market would mean interesting wars to acquire and more importantly retain customers (India is a very very price sensitive market and introduction of number portability, due in 2009, would ensure fierce battles between telcos).
And three key mobility trends to watch out for in 2009 would be
- Rising number of Mobile Internet users (cheaper GPRS/Data cards, availability of 3G, drop in prices of handsets that support Internet, needs/wants of users etc.). This would also mean that VAS would move beyond traditional domains of dialer tones, ringback tones, this tone, that tone etc.
- Application stores driving innovation in mobile products and services (Rajesh Jain of Emergic also spoke about this). However key to applications would be evangelism on telco’s, handset manufacturer’s and policy maker’s part.
- Entertainment would still beat information as most widely requested service/product. More and more entertainment content players – cricket, bollywood, social networking, videos, media would take the mobile route. Pull content/services would start gaining traction over push content/services.
All these 5 points from me are very common-sensical. What are your thoughts on these trends?
They are meeting on Monday, 29th December 2008 at 6.30 pm at Cafe Coffee Day, VS Khandekar Marg, Vile Parle East, Mumbai. Please track this page for updates. Event should be fun and insightful. I am planning to attend the event. Anyone else coming?
P.S.: This marks beginning of a new category on my blog – Mobile.
