This blog is about Indian Mobile ‘VAS’ – that was originally ‘Value Added Services’ and which has turned into ‘Vain, Anorexic Suffering’
Imagine if the electricity supplier in your home (mine is BEST), starts telling you which Appliances (fridges, washing machines etc) are ‘allowed’ by them for you use and which are ‘not allowed’ to be used for their electric supply.
OR
The Internet Company that provides you connectivity (MTNL/Airtel) starts demanding that you visit websites chosen by them and not the ones you go to!
I think the current state of affairs of Mobile Operators in India, and their strangle hold of what content can be shown on their decks & the bully like monopolistic pressures they are exerting is equivalent to them telling me ‘Alok, we don’t think you should be taking to your Mom’!!!
The term ‘Value added services’ means that you provide a value over and above what is currently being provided by you.
So, lets take the case of Credit Card Companies.
The ‘service’ they provide is the easy payment of moneys via a plastic card. I buy something on the spot; they bill me later, I pay them (sometimes at my convenience), & they pay the restaurant or the shop or mall I bought stuff in, while taking take a 2-3% commission. Everyone is happy!
Credit Cards in India and Globally are Billion or possibly Trillion $$$ businesses.
Sure, once in a while these Credit Card Companies insert ‘offers’ in the bills they send me, and tempt me with ‘value added’ opportunities – Eat here and take a 10% off or fly this airline and take your Companion (I wonder who that is) free. But its MY PREROGATIVE to take that ‘value added service offer’ or to reject it and go on with my business as usual.
The BUSINESS of Credit Cards Companies is to effortlessly transmit money and charge a fees to do so. Full Stop.
In India, Mobile Telcos whose real business is to manage Voice Calls via Mobile, treat VAS like its their ‘Zamindari’ (landlord) Business:
– They dictate what goes in the consumer portal and what doesn’t
– They demand revenue shares with content suppliers that are completely draconian
– They take all kinds of favors ( and I am told straight forward bribes) to put specific content on their decks
– Payments from them to vendors come as they please, when they please, in cuts and pieces as their moods dictate.
I don’t want to waste your time berating how badly Mobile Telcos have treated Content Providers in India and how terribly the VAS business in this otherwise booming Country of ours has suffered.
I want to talk about how FOOLISH THESE TELCOS have been in NOT SEEING the big picture!!!
– Their only leverage is that they have a ‘billing’ relationship with their end consumers.
Because they can debit pre-paid consumers (90% of India have pre paid accounts) and also the post paid users for ‘content’ (games, rign tones etc etc), they dictate supply terms and also encourage all kinds of corruption for content served via them.
Funnily, their original business of providing VOICE Mobile services has gone bad to worse in Quality and even in pricing.
Vampires have ‘Vampired’ themselves in the price wars.
Value Added Services has turned into what I call a ‘Vain Anorexic Suffering’
Lets examine why:
– Vanity of owning users is the stupidest thing I have heard. Everyone ‘OWNS’ me! My Operator, my Credit Card Company, my bank etc etc. Just because I pay you a monthly cheque doesn’t make me your Slave!!
– Anorexic because rather than encouraging MORE, they have walked the path of LESS. Any operator here tells you to get lost when you approach them with new ideas or you are directed to existing bribery laced channels of old VAS companies operating hand in glove with these Operators.
So, a keen, budding, young gaming genius can never dream of going to a large Mobile Telco in India and just pitching their game.
Angry Birds would have been destined to become Hungry Birds if the Telcos in India had their way!
– Suffering because the FUNNIEST twist to this tale is that it is the OPERATORS who are paying the price!!
Consumers can get content from where they want, at their own terms. Napster proved that once and for all. So, side loading of content, bluetooth swapping etc etc is no problem. In the end, VAS revenues get sidelined.
And added to their woes is that no respectable content provider wants to go to such Shylocks to write out their own contracts for their personal pounds of flesh.
So, as the saying goes, Nature abhors Vacuums. You create one and something will come to fill it in.
In the USA, the Apple iTunes platform DEMOLISHED the Operator deck monopolies of Verizon and T-Mobile etc and just completely changed the rules of the game. Today ANYONE can create content (good, bad and ugly) and put it up on Apple iTunes stores and earn 70% revenue shares for downloads (100% for all ads) vs a 10-25% or revenue share in India!!
Even an absolute monopoly like Facebook gets it – they allow you to charge Facebook Credits in facebook commerce (games, etc) and pay you 70% revenue share.
These operators…OOOPS – Allow me to interrupt….
GOSH – I see this MAMMOTH, MONSTROUS, GIGANTIC, HUGE SPACESHIP outside in the skies hovering earth…
Funnily, humans and pets and trees and everybody else seems to be fine, but the TELECOM TOWERS seem to be crumbling and meting and just crashing to the ground….
What the hell is going on????
Oh my God, this Spaceship is just burning these towers away, and as it turns a bit, I see the name underneath…. its called………. ‘ANDROID’…
I am quickly doing research and finding out that ANDROID is this massive platform that 3 out of 4 Mobile consumers are rapidly using to power their phones ( today Android is 40% – will grow to 75% in less than 2 years) and this platform allows all kinds of mobile content consumption, discovery, billing and transactions.
In its mission statement, ANDROID says is absolutely democratic and does not distinguish you by the color of your skin or the bribes you pay to come into their world (read what content goes up on their decks).
Android is the ‘ANTI CHRIST’ OF THE OPERATOR DECK.
Mr. Operator, better look at Android carefully coz a lighting in the sky just carved out a message that read ‘ Operators – your death is near’.
To put it in a business context:
– The Android’s Operating Platform will divorce content from Operator Decks and move them to the Android Market.
– The Android Market will be free for all and will judge content movement on the merit of number of downloads and NOT amount of bribes paid to appear there.
– Billing for paid content will be via Google Check out – Indians are anyway paying for lots of e-commerce stuff and hence will not hesitate to give Google their Credi Card details.
– Operators will become plumbers. They will just power the phones with a connection and will not have any say in what content consumers should have on their phones and what they should be paying for and how much etc etc
I’m too excited to write any further…
After Egypt, Libya, Yemen its now time for the Indian Mobile Operator to be overturned.
*****