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Airtel eyes mobile applications to drive growth
By siliconindia
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Friday, 18 September 2009, 23:19 IST
Bangalore: Bharti Airtel, one of the leading telecom operators in India, has slowly expanded its business beyond just communication and has been providing other services like DTH, IPTV, traffic automation solution and mobile-enabled tax collection system.
"Airtel started with communication (telephone calls), then moved to content (e.g. DTH and IPTV). Now applications are gathering momentum and boosting our business prospects," explains Jai Menon, Director for Technology and Customer Service at Bharti Airtel, as well as Group Chief Information Officer of the Bharti Enterprises group to Business Standard.
Bharti Airtel provides mobile-enabled tax collection system. Tax collectors are given a BlackBerry and a small Bluetooth printer that could be used to issue a receipt instantly. Also, Airtel has developed a traffic automation solution for the Bangalore Traffic Police, which is the world's largest BlackBerry-supported law enforcement network. The Bangalore Transport Information System (BTIS) records traffic densities in real-time and uses Airtel's mobile network to keep the public informed about the traffic on roads and alternative routes.
Airtel is already expanding its market in e-commerce. It uses m-check application with the help of which subscriber can register to pay for Airtel or other merchant services with their debit or credit cards. Airtel also has a tie up with makemytrip.com to book tickets. "All these transactions are very secure, and the user interface very simple to use," says Menon. He adds that nearly 250 million e-commerce transactions are conducted every month.
Airtel is also focusing on providing solution even for small businesses. It provides e-mail solutions and online desktops and the netPC. The prices of these solution comes between 
70 and 1,000 per month. For enterprise segment users can install a client application called the Mobile Applications Tool for Enterprises (Mate) from Airtel on their handsets. Airtel derives around 22 percent of its total revenues from the enterprise segment.
Enterprise value-added services (VAS) plays a crucial part in the overall VAS industry which is estimated to touch 16,500 crore by 2010-end. Enterprise VAS alone is expected to touch around 1,000 crore in three to five years.
70 and 1,000 per month. For enterprise segment users can install a client application called the Mobile Applications Tool for Enterprises (Mate) from Airtel on their handsets. Airtel derives around 22 percent of its total revenues from the enterprise segment.
Enterprise value-added services (VAS) plays a crucial part in the overall VAS industry which is estimated to touch 16,500 crore by 2010-end. Enterprise VAS alone is expected to touch around 1,000 crore in three to five years.
