Today’s mobile consumers don’t just want to use mobiles to talk, they want internet, entertainment access to other services. And to cash on this demand, Tata Docomo has introduced services like Doctor on Call, Family Tracker, Tutor on Mobile and Smart Home solution – some of these services are being offered for the first time in the country and have received fair success too.
Tata DoCoMo, in which Japan’s biggest operator DoCoMo has 26 per cent stake, has been bringing in very innovative value added solutions to the market and this is already paying rich dividends as TTML (Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Ltd), which is part of Tata Docomo and is a listed entity within the group, has reported that VAS forms more than 33 per cent of its revenue. This figure is one of the highest in the industry which is struggling with low ARPU due to decreased voice earnings.
Here’s a look at what Tata DoCoMo did to be so successful.
DoCoMo Japan is known for its very high tech VAS offerings and by partnering with it Tata Communications has been able to bring some of those services to India.
“Thanks to our partnership with DoCoMo we are miles ahead of competition on the value added services front, and we will continue to focus on this segment to enable better customer experience,” a spokesperson of the company told The Mobile Indian.
The company says it is getting a good response for services like Doctor on Call, which enables users to consult doctors, and Family Tracker that can be used to track one’s kids.
Smart Home is another one of a kind solution which enables users to watch a video of their homes and its surroundings (depending on where you put the camera) from anywhere in the world.
While these services have just been introduced, the company is betting big on them. It already offers services like Docomics (comics on mobile), prayer, career counseling on mobile and blood line club.
Apart from these, Tata offers other vanilla services like caller ring back tones and ring tones through several tie-ups with content providers. Like some time back during the Independence Day celebration it offered exclusive access to AR Rahman’s latest ‘Satyamev Jayathe’ album.
A major contributor to this revenue is Tata Photon+, a CDMA high speed wireless Broadband service, which according to sources has close to 42 per cent market share in the business. Photon doesn’t offer just internet but mobile TV as well.
“The other major chunk of the value added service business comes from the enterprise segment, some of which comes from the Tata group companies like TCS and Tata Motors. TCS also sells these services as system integrator,” a Tata Communication spokesperson informed The Mobile Indian.