Mobile VAS to compensate for loss in voice revenues for telcos

DUBLIN, IRELAND: Research and Markets has announced the addition of Frost & Sullivan's new report "Mobile VAS Market in SAME Region" to its offering.

This research study focuses on the state of the Value Added Services market in the prominent countries of South Asia, Middle East and North African regions. The countries considered are India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The study details the state of each country market in terms of subscriber count and mobile service revenues and leads to the market size for mobile VAS in those markets.

It divides the VAS offerings under messaging and premium content heads with estimates of the contribution made by each one of them to the total VAS market in a particular market. The important participants in each of the markets along with their market share and competitive positioning are also described as a part of this study.

Market overview
The telecom markets in the South Asia and Middle East (SAME) region, having weathered the economic downturn, is well on the road to recovery, with VAS accounting for almost 10 percent of the total mobile service revenues.

The premium content segment of VAS has contributed more significantly than the messaging segment, and this trend is likely to persist. The mobile VAS market has grown in varying degrees in different SAME countries, with the CAGRs ranging from 8.2 percent in Saudi Arabia to 21.7 percent in India.

Content-based VAS and predominantly entertainment-oriented content are helping to improve adoption rates in Saudi Arabia, where news and Islamic content is dominant. The VAS markets in many countries are fragmented with a large number of participants such as operators, content providers, content aggregators, and system integrators.

There are still arbitration and reconciliation issues in the VAS value chain, as market participants are gradually on the look out for more mature business models.

High-priced 3G/feature handsets have not found mass acceptance in countries such as Pakistan and Egypt, while intense competition among operators have resulted in price wars and lack of differentiation in high-potential markets such as India and Saudi Arabia.

The market fragmentation has spawned differences regarding revenue sharing among the stakeholders. Despite the intense competition and price wars, there is still room for a better end-user experience and customization of applications. The way forward in the telecom markets is to differentiate the VAS offerings by content-based and usage-related innovations (pay per use instead of subscriptions) rather than price, says the analyst of this research.

Market offerings such as managed VAS currently present in the markets of Sri Lanka and India enable end-to-end management of its entire portfolio, which is a huge advantage in a fragmented VAS market.

Market participants should be aiming to drive active usage of VAS among mobile customers. They can achieve this by focusing on enriching the user experience in a way that allows customers to derive maximum value. Innovative VAS offerings, introduction of 3G technology, operator consolidation, and sachet VAS are some key factors that can hike the adoption rates of VAS in the SAME region.

The future of VAS products is linked to superior customer experience and delivering more value with applications to facilitate transactions related to banking, education, travel, entertainment, and commerce, notes the analyst. The progression of markets such as India and Pakistan toward 3G will also drive the uptake of data-rich VAS, as advanced networks enable high-speed data downloads.