Indiatimes.com Launches India’s First Pan-Subscriber Provider Mobile VAS Access
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Indiatimes.com, has come up with another innovation on the VAS front. After providing news, ringtones, astrological predictions, enquiry and the likes, India can now actually listen to all those services and more. Thanks to the service provider independent platform, mobile subscribers from all around the country can now dial just one single number 58888 and can listen to music, gossip, astro tips & news.
Indiatimes claims to currently possess a subscriber base of 30 million and accessible to more than 250 million subscribers across the country. The service is available in Hindi & English and is live across all major telecom operators like Reliance, TATA, Airtel & Vodafone.
“We at Indiatimes 58888 have always led by innovations to deliver differentiated product offerings that are based on consumer needs and most importantly that’s easy to use. The launch of 58888 Voice is an example. - This is the first and only Pan Operator-Pan India single number service which is common to Voice, SMS & WAP. With this launch we are going to change the way consumers use their phones - We will not only fill the current voids in the Mobile VAS segment but also constantly deliver new & relevant products,” says Mr. Dinesh Wadhawan, CEO & MD of Times Internet Ltd.
Apart from all the bells and whistles behind the release, it’s interesting to try and predict the business model behind such a service. Undoubtedly, the mobile service providers shall charge a substantial percentage from Indiatimes for allowing their subscribers to access such a service. In addition to that, right from the days when the call charges used to be Rs10/minute, most of the premium VAS activated content has come down to Rs3/minute and such a pricing exists in a scenario when the mobile service provider itself is providing such benefits. Needless to say, the call charges are likely to be pretty high in such a case.
It’s true that Indiatimes is one of the leading mobile content provider in the country. But, companies like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance shall always work towards improving both the quality and quantity of the content that they already provide, once the popularity of such a service hits the market. Such a scenario compells me to compare with the PC market where anti viruses and anti spyware of third party softwares has always been the norm but when Microsoft realized the importance of the same, it promptly came out with One Care and Bitdefender, pre-installed in Windows OS, thus rooting out any need to install third party softwares.
Well, the silver lining behind this all is definitely the fact that the mobile companies are actually giving enough emphasis on the quality of content they provide to their subscribers and from the user’s point of view, if you can shell out a few extra bucks, life is always a lot easier for you than the less-informed plain Jane next door.
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