How Rural India Will Influence MVAS - Mobile Value Added Services

The Mobile Value Added Service (MVAS) is definitely going to see a future in rural India. The use of mobile phones has increased in B class and C class cities. People from small towns and villages understand the usage of mobile phones. They are not using their mobile phones just for making and receiving calls but they are using it for sending SMS, listening to music, playing games, downloading short movie clips, viewing wallpaper of their favorite actor and actresses. The entry of cheaper handsets has driven the expansion of mobile usage in rural India.

According to a latest report by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), there is an increase of 18% mobile users in rural India. Currently rural India has massive mobile subscribers of more than 109.7 million. MVAS companies are keeping eye like a hawk on this trend, as new market is opening for them. Of course the rural India is going to be the biggest consumer of mobile VAS, but it’s time to understand their taste and serve what they are looking for. Following are certain VAS (Value Added Services) contents which I think rural India will consume the most.

Astrology

As the rural subscribers are comparatively more superstitious than the urban subscribers. They talk about the sun signs, grah dasha, shani chakra, etc. So they are more curious about their future predictions. Here VAS companies can make some content for this class of subscribers. It can be done through the mobile alerts, astro portals, CRBT etc. The astrology can here be combined with the religious content. People will love to download the wallpapers, songs, animations of their God and Goddess.

Bollywood

The rural India is much aggressive than the urban as far as the consumption of Bollywood content is concerned. The rural Indian subscriber likes to keep his caller tune updated, download latest video clips and ring tones. They download the content as soon as it comes to their mobile phone to show it to other friends and users.

News and weather report

The rural subscriber is much more curious in getting the news about latest happenings in the politics, economics, sports, neighbor relation etc. He loves to subscribe for the alerts of latest weather report in order to find out the weather forecasts, political happenings etc.

Cricket and other sports

Rural subscriber is also interested to get the live score of the cricket matches. Users subscribe to the alerts for latest cricket score and other games where India is taking part.

Apart from this I think the introduction of 3G and increase in other high-end phones in rural India will increase the use of phones for playing games, making friends online, sharing messages and using social networks. But right now we need to understand this ecosystem and serve the VAS which they are looking for. Else the user will get confused with, what he is looking for and what the mobile operator is serving them.

Clickadtrix provides mobile marketing services for variety of mobile based products and applications. Feel free to ask questions or share opinions on this topic.