With the number of mobile handset customers growing at higher rate across the world and India being one of the most complex and competitive market, service providers, original equipment manufacturers (OEM), VAS community and advertisers were in need of the application which could help them in knowing the consumer behavior of mobile users, especially the usage of different services as well as the pattern of usage. The birth of Informate Mobile Intelligence took place in June 2009 to help the same (telecom) community in providing the services according to the need of its customers.

"In the recent years all the advertising source like television, radio and online have reached to the another level by measuring its usage by different measuring devices available in the market, but mobile advertising has not grown as much as it should have and this is the main reason that we have founded Informate Mobile Intelligence, which is a subsidiary of consumer market research firm, CrossTab," said Kedar Sohoni, President of Informate Mobile Intelligence and Co-founder of Cross-Tab.

The Mumbai based firm uses Smart Meters application to bring out its research reports related to consumer behavior. The Smart Meters is installed in individual handset to monitor the user’s behavior and with the help of this application, the company prepares syndicated reports. The reports provide actual data about mobile phone usage on a real time basis. The data is matched with demographic information of the users for understanding the consumer behavior. The information is captured across operators and handset providers in various regions in the country on a real time basis, giving an insight on mobile applications used and duration (Games, Camera, Music Player, Email), websites browsed from the mobile and time spent online, memory usage, phone book size, number of photos or videos stored etc. Informate share its research reports with the clients on monthly/yearly basis.

"We feel there is a strong demand from the telecom industry for such kind of applications which also track offline usage patterns like application usage and handset features, and therefore we will cater not only to India but also to other markets across the globe particularly China, Brazil and U.S," added Kedar. Apart from telecom operators, there is a huge demand of this application in marketing, advertising and entertainment industry.

To install this application on all the mobiles, the company is in talks with the number of mobile manufacturers across the world. But it is not that much easy for Kedar to influence mobile manufacturers or users to allow to install Smart Meters, as it can disturb the privacy of any individual. But Kedar does not get demotivated by this gesture of users or manufacturers and proposes more benefits than having losses by installing this application on the mobile sets. He said, 'If a person loses his mobile, we will be getting alert and we can know all the details of the person who is using that mobile. Another advantage is that being the number of prepaid users in India more than postpaid users, we provide bill on monthly and yearly basis to the mobile users. Users can know their usage details." For the mobile internet report, the subscription price starts at Rs.1,00000.

After completing the market experience of three months, Informate is in talks with some venture capitalists to invest in its product. Currently, under the umbrella of Informate, 30 people are employed in India and the company is aiming to be a truly global centre in the near future, by establishing its presence in the markets of China, Brazil, U.S. and Europe. The company has already started the recruitment process in China and the U.S.