MTN the african telecom giant which has been in the news lately for dropping the deal with Bharti on the merger between the two companies has now tied up with India based IMIMobile to address the growing demand for content in emerging markets.
MTN has access to 21 telecom markets and this tie up will provide them globally popular content (think bollywood) which will include music (with local and international flavour), sports, games, entertainment, news and much more.
MTN has entered this tie up to generate more revenues via mobile content and services which is currently estimated to be around US$150.2 billion in 2011, up from US$89,3 billion in 2006, worldwide.
MTN will also leverage its IMIMobile partnership to deliver content it already owns. MTN has exclusive rights to the 2010 FIFA World Cup content on subscribers’ handsets, including soccer match news, fixtures, match results as well as team and group profiles.
Vishwanath Alluri, Founder and CEO of IMIMobile said the following on the tie up “This is a major commercial milestone for IMIMobile as we continue to build our offering to support leading operators worldwide. To be chosen by MTN as their strategic partner ahead of a strong list of competitors is testament to our unique service which is based on industry leading technology platforms, content management expertise, a managed services and SaaS (Software as a Service) business model combined with 24/7 technical support and strict SLA compliance. We are excited by the opportunity and are looking forward to helping MTN achieve its objectives of creating substantial additional revenue streams.”
Our Analysis: This seems like a win win deal. For MTN this gives them access to over 350 content providers worldwide which are linked to IMIMobile and for IMIMobile it gives them the reach of MTN which has 103.2 million subscribers across its operations in 21 emerging markets in Africa and Middle-east.
