Mobile VAS in South Asia, Middle East continues to grow: Frost & Sullivan
26 Nov 2009
Mumbai: Mobile markets across regions are intenselycompetitive and some of them have reached saturation in terms of penetration of addressable markets, says technology researcher Frost & Sullivan in asnew report.
With tumbling voice tariffs contributing to declining average revenue per user (ARPU) rates, mobile operators are actively pushing for growth of thenon-voice value-added services (VAS) market.
Despite the economic uncertainties, the mobile services market in South Asian and Middle East countries continues to sustain a growth path, especially in countries such as India.
Presently, mobile voice revenues constitute the largest chunk of mobile operator's revenues, relegating mobile data revenues to a miniscule percentage.
However, mobile operators have realised that in order to curb depleting ARPUs, they would need to widen their focus on increasing data revenues.
In the case of messaging, the popularity of peer to application (P2A) SMS,where mobile subscribers respond to an application such as voting through SMS for a TV program, is on the rise.
