Mobile goes beyond voice

Value Added Services: A dominant player in modern lifestyle. Photo: Amran Hossain

Nobin cheered to the surprise of his friends. His favourite cricket team India beat Sri Lanka in the day's match. But despite the joy of victory, they could not help but wonder how he found out the results of the match there and then, sitting at the Teacher Student Centre of Dhaka University.
A distant voice asked, “Is it true, how can you be so sure?”
Nobin proudly displayed the handy piece of technology that was the apple of his eye, his mobile, which screened the game results. The teenage group finally sighed relief and cheered again, thanks to value-added service (VAS).
Tailored to the needs of such teenage groups, Bangladesh's mobile phone services have already gone beyond the fundamental role of voice communication. The market diversified in the last few years and had hundreds of services under its umbrella, mostly designed by local content providers.
Mobile value added services are not part of the basic package and are availed separately by the end user. They are used as tools for differentiation and it allows mobile operators to develop another stream of revenue. VAS includes a series of services ranging from ring tones, games, SMS, images to MMS, and the latest call block and voice chat.
Bangladesh's value added service market has not matured as yet and it is characterised by the presence of a number of local small players.
Talking to the industry people, it is assumed that the yearly turnover for the VAS market stands at around Tk 200 crore, and it witnesses 35 percent growth every year. The SMS, ring tone, ring back tone and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) based services retain the major market share. The market is led by a few companies: Inforev Ltd, TTBC Ltd and SSLE-ANNEX.
Industry insiders estimated that the contribution of VAS to the operators' revenues increased to 5 percent from 3 percent a year ago.
Terming the Bangladeshi VAS market a 'virgin', Faisal Alim, chairman of TTBC Limited, said the Indian VAS market is now worth one billion US dollars. However he assured the Bangladeshi market has opportunity, as services are fast gaining popularity.
“The mobile phone is not just a device used for voice communication any more, it is a part of our lifestyle,” he said. Among all the products his company provides, 50 percent of the market share is held by ring tones.
Teenagers mostly download songs to be used as ring tones or ring back tone for their mobile, he said. Ninety percent of all the songs downloaded everyday are in Bangla, making it the most popular among music lovers, said Alim.
Locally, around 25 companies have been engaged in VAS bandwagon for the last seven years. Besides, mobile operators are also engaged in developing content for their customers, as VAS now plays an important role in increasing revenues in the decreasing ARPU (average revenue per users). Presently, the average mobile phone market's ARPU is Tk 146 per month.
To the delight of many, VAS operators introduce new services almost every month.
"We design our services by keeping in mind the needs of our customers, during a certain period of time," said Md Sharif Uddin, technical director of Inforev Limited. He said Inforev's latest exclusive service for Grameenphone customers is job services.
Under the interactive voice response (IVR) service, Inforev lets the Grameen customers know about job offers that are posted in the country's largest job portal, bdjobs.com.
The company also has its own platform to provide IVR services to AKTEL.
Citing an example, Sharif said they are now working on some religious content that may hit the market during the holy month of Ramadan.
Sharif shared one recent success story of his company. During the recent city corporation elections, they provided a service by which voters could locate his or her voting place by sending his or her national ID number and serial number.
In association with the Election Commission and TeleTalk, Sharif said his company got massive responses from the voters.
"We focus more on IVR services because it does not require a certain minimum level of education. Whereas SMS based services can only be used by those who can type in text," he said.
Rasheq Rahman, managing director of SSLE-ANNEX, believes that mobile users will demand more and more information in times to come. This trend will help expand the VAS market gradually.
SSLE-ANNEX mainly focuses on IVR based SMS services, including news, polling, SMS quiz contests, jokes, and surveys. It now plans to introduce mobile television services soon, by which customers can even watch television on their mobile sets.
Citing research findings conducted by Ericsson, he said majority mobile users are now eager to watch TV on their mobile sets.
However, the popularity of VAS services varied from operator to operator.
The market's largest mobile phone operator Grameenphone said of all the VAS services, SMS and SMS based services held majority or 30 percent share. Mobile internet and welcome tunes held 20 percent and 10 percent share respectively.
On the other hand, the second largest operator's customers perhaps like music a lot. Banglalink's ring back tune services called 'amar tune' grips 50 percent share of the total VAS. The remaining 50 percent share goes to the company's SMS and voice-based services.
The six mobile operators mobile market has already reached out to 44.8 million customers. Along with rapid customer growth, latest technologies also await Bangladeshi customers.
The telecom regulator announced the introduction of WiMax and 3G, the high-speed internet based technology, soon into the market. The VAS industry insiders predict that these two technologies will significantly expand the VAS market.
"The 3G (3rd generation technology) will add new dimensions to the growing VAS market," said Arun Bansal, managing director of Ericsson Bangladesh. Bangladeshi expatriates will also be benefited, as they can make video calls by 3G, he said.
"Our mobile internet based service is also becoming very popular," echoed Khalid Hasan, director (regulatory and corporate affairs) of Grameenphone.
However, the almost blanketed VAS market is not completely praised by the customers, due to its high service charges. Nobin and his fellow mates allege that a single VAS would come at a price tag of several accumulated phone calls.
"I have to pay Tk 40 for a single welcome tune per month, which is completely irrational. I can buy the entire album at that price," said Mahfuzul Haque, a friend of Nobin.
VAS industry insiders admitted to the charges placed. They said they usually have to use the mobile operators' network to air VAS.
"So whatever the operators charge, the VAS operators are compelled to follow that," said an entrepreneur of a leading VAS provider.
VAS providers and telecom providers share revenues in the ratio of 45:55. Industry insiders also admitted that anomalies also occur, as there are no policies to guide the practices.
However, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is working to formulate a VAS policy, as the officials of BTRC are also aware of some of the anomalies taking place. Soon the VAS policy is hoped to resolve any further unholy acts in this industry.

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