We reported on how Tata Docomo is bringing Manga comics to Indian mobiles. Now it seems Airtel plans to follow suit with the launch of its comics service on via Airtel live. Airtel has announced the launch of an entire comics portal on Airtel Live. This service would be GPRS enabled and will provide access to more than 300 Indian and international comic characters — from Popeye to the local Nagaraj.
The pricing is also very competitive as customers will be charged Rs.10 per week for 10 comic strips (when compared to Tata docomo’s 20 rupees for one comic), which is inclusive of data charges. This move comes right after Airtel’s alliance with twitter to provide Tweetsms. Seems like Saleem Mobhani’s exit from Hungama.com and his consequent entry into Airtel as the Head of Entertainment has got good backing for entertainment VAS within Airtel.
‘More than a third of Airtel customers in India have GPRS-enabled handsets and with the mobile becoming the one-stop device for all entertainment needs, comics would be a much sought after addition to our existing services on Airtel Live,’ said Saleem Mobhani, Airtel’s head of mobile entertainment.
This does ring in the era of comic battles on mobiles. Mobile comics is relatively new space in the Indian vas community and it remains to be seen how operators promote these services to increase awareness and uptake. Even earlier comic strips owned by ACK Media like Supandi and Shikari Shambhu have chosen to launch games rather than comics on the mobile. So this launch of mobile comics by two operators in the span of a few months does point towards a new growing trend. Though only number of downloads in the next few quarters would be the measure of success for this comic caper initiative.
