Non-voice application up 139 percent in India
By siliconindia   |   Friday, 11 March 2005, 20:30 IST
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NEW DELHI:Non Voice market within mobile telephone segment in India grew 139 percent in 2004 over the previous year, a new survey by IDC India said. The biggest share among the non-voice service was short messaging service (SMS) that accounted for 70 percent of revenues for the telecom companies. “The data market has grown rapidly due to increasing awareness and acceptance of mobile value added services and application among subscribers”, IDC India analyst Mugdh Rajit said. At present, non-voice revenue contributes around 4.7 percent to the total mobile services revenues although this much behind the international standards, it is catching up fast. “Traditionally, the thrust of the service providers was on offering only basic voice service, but the declining average revenue per user and also the margins on voice has made them think of alternate revenue streams with better margins and data services seem to the first choice,” he said. SMS was and will remain as the biggest contributor to the total revenues of the non-voice market and is expected to remain so for the next few years. However MMS services have not pecked up yet because of lack of handsets and high cost of service, the survey said. Another major non-voice contributor has been the polyphonic ring tones, downloads like wallpapers, games and logos but due to their prohibitive cost of services and handset availability.

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