IAMAI and IMRB have released their Mobile VAS report here. I went through the report, and the quality appalled me. I was expecting to see a more quantitative report from a research agency of IMRB’s repute. The only numbers they have outlined are top level numbers (“Mobile VAS to be a $1b industry”) and the rigour behind that is not clear. For example, while other reports and operators I talk to refer to “Voice VAS” as a major category, this report fails to even mention its existence. As another example, the revenue shares between operators, aggegators and IP owners is presented as one overall number, where as all stakeholders I talk to realise that this is a function of the kind of content — games get higher share to developers and aggregators than news service on SMS. Financial services, which is a significant consumer of A2P and P2A services does not find a mention even in the top 5 list!

A lot of the other data is a mashup of COAI numbers, and adds little value to the report.

And then there is the amusing parts — such as, “The key addressable barriers would be to ensure greater rationality in revenue sharing between Telcos & content developers…” — I wonder how they came up with whats the “rational” share of revenue. The report goes on to predict that by 2010, operators’ share will drop from 60% to 30% — the only rationale offered is that aggregators will get more bargaining power! Wishful 30,000 ft level thinking! Another part I enjoyed is the “perceived and practical value” chart — take a look!

And lastly, a point of concern. As per the report, it seems that the mobile revenue are growing at 60% a year (the report only talks about GSM revenues, not including CDMA). If the VAS services are also growing at 60% (coincidence!), it implies that VAS is not increasing its share in the mobile telephony spends. Normally, one would expect higher usage and revenues growth on VAS than on voice…

But first thing first, is there a market for a better report on Mobile VAS!?

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