Think Mobile

MTS 'a step ahead'

MTS: targeting the next generation consumers

                        

Sistema Shyam TeleServices (SSTL), which deals in telecommunication services under the brand name MTS, has unveiled a new identity designed to further establish the brand MTS, targetting the next generation consumers with the new tagline, 'A Step Ahead'.

The re-branding and repositioning comes on the eve of MTS crossing the 10-million subscriber mark in India since its Indian launch in March, 2009.

MTS has incorporated the new tagline, 'A Step Ahead,' in the same red box as its logo. The symbol of a white egg with the word MTS is still there. Earlier, it used to be two red boxes side-by-side, with a white egg symbol in one, and the word MTS in the next one. The white egg symbolises simplicity and genius. In a bid to fit the new tagline, the egg, and the MTS logo, the size of the red rectangle has been slightly stretched.

In 2006, MTS changed its logo as part of a re-branding campaign carried out by its parent company JSFC Sistema. In 2010, MTS announced the acquisition of Sistema Telecom, owners of the MTS egg logo, thus

MTS is to be more consumer-centric with the new positioning, with the aim to give satisfaction to its customers.

MTS will also have extensive communication-centric activities. They will be launching a new integrated and disruptive brand communication programme, including a new television commercial. Above-the-line (ATL) communication will also be backed by digital activities, and a range of on-ground initiatives across all key markets, especially across malls and colleges in the country.

For the record, MTS's creative duties are being handled by Rediffusion Y&R. Its media duties are handled by Media Planning Group (MPG) India, the media-buying arm of Havas Media.

Telecom Consumer Complaints: Insight

Over-charging Mobile Operators–More common than you think!

If you are a mobile post-paid subscriber, I am sure you may have been surprised one time or the other, looking at your mobile bills. More often than not, they are more than you could have imagined. Most of the times you can’t figure out why the bill is so high, at other times you can spot discrepancies in your SMS charges or phone calls. Sometimes you are also charged for things like caller tunes without having even asked for them.

Yes, that’s the existing scenario and you are simply one of the thousands (or even millions) of victims being overcharged by mobile operators. Interestingly, some of us don’t even realize that we are being looted by the mobile companies.

So how does it work? Say you have asked for some schemes like free SMSs and cheaper call rates. You are really happy that you have made the best possible deals and talk to your girlfriend ( or boyfriend or wife or husband) day in and day out. Many mobile companies use this as the easiest way to fool you. They sometimes charge for SMSswhich have been paid for as FREE or charge a few paisa here and there for some calls which you can just call ‘BILLING MISTAKES’. But then what’s the big deal in a few paisa here and there, right? WRONG! With a few paisa here and there the mobile operators are making millions all the way to the bank. Just think, if each call is billed at just 1 second extra, with millions of calls daily, operators are making a killing!

But, the overcharging is not limited to just calls and SMSes -  Caller tunes and other value added services are also cash cows!

One could argue saying this is the way mobile operators encourage customers to use caller tunes. But isn’t charging them against ethics? Similarly, value added services are another big money spinner for mobile operators as they charge their customers even after the services have been cancelled. Every mobile operator asks you to deposit some money for the services they provide. All the while you are using the operator’s services, they are earning interest. Once you cancel and are late with your bill payment, you have to pay a fee. And only the money minus the interest is given back to you.

Although hundreds of thousands of users face this issue, only a few of them notice it and even less complain about it. Here are the number of complaints launched against Operators in last 2 years.

Consumer Complaints for overcharging

Operator	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11(Upto Dec’2010)
Airtel	773	1736	1062
Tata	232	678	329
Reliance	466	1000	685
Vodafone	477	881	538
Idea	129	425	371
Others	109	370	300
Total	2186	5090	3285

The biggest complaints of overcharging have been from Airtel and Reliance. The TRAI has notified the Telecom Consumer Grievances Regulations, 2007 regarding providing some protection to consumers from such errant operators. But no one has done anything and the consumer is left to fend for himself. From trying their best to reject the MNP because it makes it competitive for them to charging customers over the top, mobile operators have been ruling the roost.

How long can they really do this? Is there any way to stop consumers getting overcharged?

SURVEY: Indian youth usage of mobile services

97% Indian youth use prepaid Mobile services

Mobile telephony has penetrated the developing nations across the world. From a bus driver to a high flying executive, everyone has one these days. Many carry more than one mobile or have multiple sim cards. Whatever be the situation, mobile handsets have become the most important component of our lives – so much so that all of us wonder how we managed to live before their advent. From texting to using phones for social networking, mobiles have become an inherent necessity.

In the light of this, Nielsen’s survey - Mobile Youth Around the World – of 1.2 lakh youth mobile phone users across Brazil, Russia, India, China, Vietnam, Germany, US, UK, Spain and Italy throws some interesting insights. The usage varies across cultures, demographics, preferences etc.

India has the lowest smartphone penetration at 10% compared to China’s 29% and the highest in Italy (47%). Though the number of male smartphone users in countries like India, Germany and Italy is very high at more than 65%, its almost equal in Russia, UK and US (where men own lesser smartphones than women).

Interestingly despite the proliferation of multiple SIM card phones, only about a maximum of 29% in Italy use such phones. In India and China the number is even lesser at around 15%.

Majority of the youth make their own decision while buying mobile handsets and only about 15% consult their parents before making the decision. Indian youth lead among those from other countries in that 40% of them hold price as the most important factor for buying a mobile device and more than 97% still use prepaid services. Prepaid services are still common across the developing world like China, Brazil etc. While it’s the exact opposite in UK, US, Germany where more people use postpaid services.

In terms of data usage like mobile Internet, apps etc. China leads the world with more than 84% using these services. On the other end of the spectrum are Indian youth, only 10% of whom use such data services. Voice and text based services still rule the roost in India.

Although, this survey does not show data usage highly amongst Indian youth, a year down the line, things might be quite different, especially due to launch of 3G services in India..

Nokia

Nokia not sure of dual SIM handset market sustaining:

Intense tariff war has led to flooding of the mobile phone market with lower-end products with dual SIM (Subscriber Identity Module). However, the single largest player in the handset market, Nokia, is yet to be convinced of the sustainability of the present trend.

According to IDC India, dual or multiple SIM handsets accounted for more than one-third (39 per cent) of the total number of handsets sold in the country during April-June 2010, up from one per cent a year ago.

The newly created market space has proved to be a game changer in the handset industry in the country, as new players (such as Micromax and Spice) have made their way among the top five sellers – largely riding on a range of dual SIM offerings.

Not to join ‘price game':

Nokia, admits that the dual-SIM market had “taken off” during the last one year. However, the company also makes it clear that it will not join the “price game”, the characteristic of the emergent market.

Compared to a range of dual SIM offerings by its competitors, Nokia currently has a single model (C-100) to offer in this category. Plans are afoot to launch a second model (C- 200) soon.

Dual-SIM is an India specific phenomenon arising out of the intense competition among the cellular operators to grab market share by unleashing a tariff war.

Whether this trend is sustainable over the long-term remains to be seen – especially with operators coming under increased pressure from tariff arbitrage

Expanding dual-SIM market:

The mobile telephony market is youth dominated resulting in competition and prevailing low telecom tariffs. These trends are expected to continue in the short (less than one year) - to medium-term (2-3 years).

The introduction of new brands has seen ‘emerging vendors' corner as much as 33 per cent of the country's mobile handset market in April-June 2010.

Sources: Business Line.

Ovi Store - Nokia

Ovi Store clicks for Nokia:

Barely a year old, Nokia Ovi Store has six Indian developers clocking more than a million downloads

Who says Apple’s App store is the only platform to make money from mobile apps — that’s a question application developers have begun to ask. Apps (short for applications) are programmes like games or utility tools that can be run on smartphones.

Six Indian developers have reportedly clocked over one million downloads on the Nokia Ovi Store and India is already among the top three countries, in terms of download.

“Purely by volumes, Ovi store is a lucrative store to be part of. For example, most of our downloads have come from Nokia 5800 XpressMusic device users, which is a sub-10k device,” said Vishal Gondal, CEO of Indiagames. The company is one of the six Indian developers that tracked one million downloads.

Indiagames has seen over 10 million app downloads on Ovi store of which a “major chunk” is from India. “Mobile users in India have begun to buy apps (free and paid) over mobile phones and with 3G coming I am confident of smartphone users increasing their app downloads,” said Gondal.

Most of the app developers in India work with several applications stores, including, Apple, Blackberry and Android App stores. But what probably is working for Nokia is its market share and the volume it has, especially in markets like India.

Since the Ovi Store was launched as part of Nokia’s broader Ovi services last year, 92 developers, globally, have seen more than one million downloads for the apps and more than 400,000 developers have signed up to contribute to the store.

To add to the momentum, the Finnish mobile vendor launched Qt Software Development Toolkit (SDK), that is used by developers to create Ovi apps. The toolkit was downloaded 1.5 million times as developers could improve the speed and efficiency of creating apps for mobile devices, including smartphones such as the new Nokia N8 and Nokia C7 (on its way to India), and the recently announced Nokia E7.

“We also announced unified application development around the Qt framework to simplify creating apps for Symbian-based devices and products that will be powered by the new MeeGo operating system,” said Tero Ojanperä, executive vice-president (Services), Nokia.

According to data released by Nokia, the Ovi Store software is downloaded three million times every day, up from two million in September. That projects to one billion downloads per year. To provide a perspective, 1.3 billion people worldwide use Nokia devices, though not all can run Ovi Store, which is limited to Nokia phones introduced over the last few years (such as Nokia S40 and S60 devices).

So what does Nokia get out of this? Most app stores typically share 70 per cent of app revenue with the developer, while the rest goes to the store. Apple’s iPhone App store is the longest-standing in the market, having opened in July 2008. It was followed by the Android app store and BlackBerry App World store, which opened in February and April 2009 respectively. Without breaking up the downloads numbers, Nokia claims that countries like China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UK and Vietnam have shown active downloads from its Ovi store where games take top place in paid downloads.

“The rapid growth on Ovi Store to pass the one billion annualised download mark demonstrates that Nokia is a competitor in both scale and size when it comes to its services. With Nokia’s stronger focus on the Qt platform and improved developer ecosystem, Nokia should continue to see its developer numbers increase as developers see profit from new revenue shares, operator billings and the ever-growing user base around the world.” said Scott Ellison, vice president of mobile and consumer connected platforms at IDC.

However, competition is catching up. Google’s Android Market that witnessed more than one billion downloads and hosts more than 160,000 apps. Apple’s ubiquitous app store has delivered over 8.5 million apps every day and not to forget Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 that is expected to make its presence felt globally. But Nokia maintains its bullish outlook. “We see Ovi store is on a strong growth path fuelled by new apps and games. We have more than 250,000 new consumers signing up for Ovi every day from across the globe,” claimed Ojanperä.

Chennai-based PR Rajendran, CEO, Nextwave Multimedia – one of the six developers who have seen more than a million downloads for its apps – agreed. “Our games and comics on Ovi crossed one million downloads in less than a year and is growing fast.” Rajendran said Nokia has been actively courting developers for its app store.

Mobile apps and competing storefronts are shackled to the smartphone market. Developers said Nokia’s edge lies in its volumes. “Ovi Store is available on 20 different handsets that include both connected smartphones and cellular feature phones. Nokia still controls about 35 per cent of the world mobile phone market, thanks to the continued popularity of its low-cost feature phones,” said iSuppli analysts who believe that consumer interest in apps is likely to grow faster than the smartphone market in China, India, and Eastern Europe, and that should give Nokia a chance to continue building the Ovi Store.