$200 million deal
A decade back, mobile phones played no big role in shaping up industry, business, trade and entrepreneurship. But today, with the advent of numerous smartphones, mobile phones have surpassed the mediocre reputation that they developed through the old, bulky, prepaid phone of the past.. They have started replacing computers in so many ways. Japanese Internet major Softbank Corporation has invested $200 million in Mobile Ad firm InMobi operating from Bangalore. It is considered as one of the largest deals in mobile internet space. Out of the total amount, $100 million will come in this month and the remaining $100 million will come in April 2012. This shows that Indian computer engineers can build a technology product acceptable at the global level. Japanese are usually very conservative in their investment unlike the Americans. If the Japanese are investing, it means the Indian company has real stuff and quality. IDG Ventures, a PE firm has estimated that $7.5 billion funds will flow into this sector by the year 2015. Large international deals have already started taking place in India. The British company Pearson acquired the Indian company TutorVista for Rs.577 crore. E-Commerce Company Filipkart raised $20 million from Tiger Global, a PE firm from New York. Snapdeal raised $40 million from investors. InMobi itself has raised $16 million before this deal from Kleiner Parkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo. InMobi was founded in 2007. What will the company do with this huge money of $200 million? It will use this for global acquisitions and for talent hunting. The company wants to become number one mobile internet company in the world. Good ambition and best wishes to the company. Already it has purchased the US firm Sprout.
Free stuff
Mobile roaming charges may be abolished by the government. This is good news for the frequent travellers. But it will hit the revenues of the telecom companies. Roaming charges make around 10% of the telecom company’s revenue. This loss will be offset by a rise in the mobile tariff. Number portability may be allowed anywhere in India. Currently it is restricted to within the circle in which the user resides. For the last fifteen years, phone tariffs have always fallen. But for the first time, the telecom players are going to raise their tariff in order to be competitive. For the consumers, there are several free applications that will help make free calls. Some of these free applications are Skype, Fring, Mobyler, Tango, Viber, Voxigo, Qik, TruPhone and Yahoo Messenger. For Blackberry users, one can try TringMe, which allows free calls over WiFi and 3G. You can also test Mo-Call that allows Internet telephony without internet connection. For basic phones, you can try Nimbuzz and Talkonaut. If you are using a PC, you can make a call through Webcall Direct, Evaphone, Freebuzzer and TulTalk. Usually, one minute of voice call through internet will consume around 160 kb of data. The average cost for the voice calls is set to rise from 55 paise per minute to around 80 paise per minute.
Mobile phones for brand building
Mobile phones are being used to build brands. Companies are still trying to figure out what kind of content people like to interact with the mobile phone. One proven category is social networking that has already attracted millions and millions of people. A lot of inventory is sold through media buying agencies. Most of the direct buys are by companies in the mobile content space. A cigarette company distributed a mobile phone app free of cost covering a popular badminton tournament in Indonesia. It attracted sizeable downloads and resulted in brand building for the cigarette company. Thailand government distributed a tourist app which became quite popular among the tourists and resulted in brand building.
Google will have a hardware platform
But in India, digital advertising is very small at around one per cent of total advertising. Mobile advertising is a part of this small quantity. It has great scope for development as people are buying smartphones in increasing numbers. Many applications are being developed for these mobile phones. The most popular applications are on Android platform. 70% of these applications are downloadable free of cost and the remaining applications cost a small amount. On the other hand, Apple applications from AppStore cost quite a lot. For this reason, Android phones are increasingly becoming popular, Now that Google has taken over Motorola’s mobile division, it will have a hardware platform also to run its popular Android software.
Mobile phone corrects answer papers
I am running a coaching centre that gives training to students to prepare for professional competitive examinations like IIT JEE, AIEEE, BITSAT, VIT, SRM, SAT etc. I have developed an application written in Android. The students have to send their answers to the multiple choice questions in a test through SMS along with the code number for that particular test. My mobile phone will process the answers and send back to the students through a return SMS their marks, percentage of marks secured and the correct answers in three seconds. It is unbelievable. The students get their results back within 3 seconds after they press the ‘send’ button. In fact, I have distributed mobile phones to all my students free of cost. When universities, colleges and schools are banning mobile phones inside their campuses, I have not only given mobile phones to my students free of cost, but also make them to answer the tests through these mobile phones. My correction time is minimised. What a wonderful gift it is.
Intel plans integration from mobiles to PCs
Now App developers look beyond the mobile phones. They develop apps that can be used in all platforms. For example Intel is looking at a seamless integration of information from mobiles to PCs. They are urging their 15000 developers in India to think of delivering content from 4 inch mobiles to 40 inch TVs and everything in between. These developers have already developed 1600 apps. Traditionally, IT services companies grow with manpower. But mobile app companies grow with more products. But most of the mobile app developers do not gain any financial advantage. Their hard work does not bring any monetary rewards as most of the mobile apps are free to download. This has prevented more people from entering the arena. Only those who have passion for app development by displaying their programme skills enter into the field without expecting any monetary reward.
SMS Invite helps students
I have downloaded from Android market a free app called SMS Invite. It is an application for inviting people to a party. But I am using it to inform and invite my students for the classes conducted at different timings. The message is sent to the students’ parents also to inform them about the class as some students lie to their parents that there are no classes. A student or his parents can reply Yes or No to the invitation. If they reply ‘Yes’, then the app will remind them fifteen minutes before the commencement of the class. It is a nice application and I have been using it for nearly two years.
WiFi facility will make mobile internet economical
Remote villages have not got mobile services yet. Growth in rural telecom density has not kept pace. There are more than 7500 uncovered villages in Orissa. Only half of the targeted mobile towers have been installed. Today, even fishermen are using mobile phones. This saves their lives also. Any untoward incident in the deep sea can be conveyed to their friends in the coast in no time. Now SMS can be sent and received in local languages also. Hyderabad-based mobile company IMI Mobile has made it possible. Only two per cent of Indian population are versatile in English. Other people are more comfortable in using their local languages to access and send SMS. Smartphone users spend nearly 70% of their time in internet than in voice calls. Venture capital funds are increasingly showing interest in mobile apps space. They prefer to invest their funds in a company that creates apps in multiple platforms. Browser firms and mobile handset makers are increasingly showing interest in mobile internet. Those users who spend a lot of time in mobile internet do it through WiFi rather than buying internet packages from their telecom services companies like Airtel, Aircel etc. WiFi facility can be accessed free of cost from the broadband modem, if the modem has WiFi facilities. A WiFi modem costs less than Rs.1500. One can browse internet to one’s heart’s content in the mobile phone without bothering about financial charges.
BSNL tops the honour
GSM phone service providers added only 7.6 million new customers for the month of July. This marks the lowest customer addition in the last 32 months. Even recently, around 15 million customers were added every month. Out of the total additions in July, BSNL tops the list with addition of 1.7 million customers. Bharti Airtel came second with 1.5 million customers, Vodafone with 1.4 million, Idea and Uninor with one million each. In the last two years, this was the first time that BSNL became the topper among telecom service providers, overtaking Bharti Airtel.
Demand for mobile programmers widening
Indian software engineers have made a mark worldwide with their programming skills. Now India’s next outsourcing market will be mobile applications. Growing demand and lower developer cost are fuelling the second round of technology off shoring. Indian developers have an edge in pricing. Request for programmers who write code for Apple’s iOS platform increased by 20% in the second quarter. For Android programmers, it increased by 15%. For Blackberry devices, it increased by 3%. It is interesting to note that Indian IT giants like Infosys, Wipro, TCS and other companies have not taken up mobile apps yet. It is still left to the small players. Of course Infosys, TCS and other companies were once upon a time small companies. Today’s small companies can grow big and dominate the world if they concentrate on quality and customer service.
GSM has many advantages over CDMA
Which one is better to have, a CDMA mobile or a GSM mobile? This question is troubling the minds of mobile users. There are many advantages in a GSM connection. There are wide varieties of service providers to choose from in comparison to CDMA. There are many options in terms of mobile handsets to choose from in case of GSM mobile. There are many features in GSM handsets compared to CDMA handsets (exception is iPhone4). GSM phones can operate with a SIM card from any country in the world. The only advantage for CDMA is that it offers better connectivity in thickly populated areas. This is because in any given place, the number of CDMA devices is less compared to GSM devices and hence traffic is less.
Hackers are turning more on mobiles
Hackers are turning their attention to mobile internet. As Android based smartphones are increasing in number and they have open-source software, hackers are wrecking havoc in Android phones much more than other phones. Google has removed about 100 malicious applications from its Android Market app store. Lookout has detected thousands of attempted infections each day on mobile phones running its software. Symantec also sees a jump in the number of malwares attacking mobile phones. As mobile financing is increasingly becoming popular, these hackers try to grab passwords and credit card numbers from the mobile phones. Many banks are offering mobile banking facility to their customers. Telecom and banks need to in place the necessary infrastructure and business models to be able to roll out the services effectively and profitably across the country.
Asia could lead mobile revolution
In future, HTML5 could share platform space in the mobile apps market. HTML5 is useful in the web/cloud intensive mobile application space. In the computation intensive context, other applications could be used. According to Google Chief Mr.Eric Schmidt, Asia will lead the mobile revolution. Getting train tickets on mobile phones is only the beginning of this revolution. Mobile banking could become more popular than actual banking.
Protect children from health hazards
As for the health hazards, a latest research finds no evidence to link mobile phones to growth of brain tumours. Nevertheless, young children should be discouraged from using mobile phones often. Cells of children rapidly divide and hence are more susceptible to any radiation. The brain area exposed to radiation is also large. Even though clear evidence is not forthcoming, it is always better to err on the side of caution to protect vulnerable children from radiation hazards. Expert panel has suggested stricter radiation norms for mobile phones. 3G handsets are getting cheaper now. Prices have dipped by 20% in the last one year. Falling raw material costs coupled with new and more efficient technology will produce increasing number of 3G handsets in the market and further pull down their prices.
Mobile TV in the offing
Mobile phone technology is going to solve long check-in queues, lost luggage and lack of communication in airports. Indian mobile phone producers like Micromax, Lava, Karbonn, Spice, Maxx, Olive and Zen are starting their operations in Africa. A new scramble for African riches is taking place among Indian companies. Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Congo are some of the favourite destinations of Indian mobile companies. Along with mobile phone technology, high resolution cameras are also effective in driving their sales. Mobile phone penetration can drive the GDP growth rate in India. National Stock Exchange is exploring the use of mobiles for trading. The government of India is keen to clear the decks for broadcast of TV channels on the mobile screen but still there are hurdles to be crossed. The Telecom ministry is opposing the government’s plan to use 700 MHz band.
Mobile technology helps criminal investigations
For solving criminal cases, mobile phones are quite useful. The first thing investigators do when a crime is committed is to trace out the mobile calls of the suspects. That is why location-based mobile services are being made mandatory. Handsets sales in India are likely to touch 220 million in 2011. ASSOCHAM has demanded that government websites should run in mobile phones too.