Service providers are facing the severity of dipping voice ARPUs and high subscriber churn rate. With new and cheaper schemes being introduced everyday, mobile content and applications are the only way to keep a subscriber glued to particular services. Innovation is the key here; the more innovative a service, the more popular it gets and more revenue it brings in. Presently value added services (VAS) accounts for 10-12% of the operator's revenue, but in the next 10 years the growth of mobile industry is expected to be driven by mobile VASs as they will form 60% of the revenue of the mobile network operators.

The Indian mobile content market is estimated to be around Rs 1,000 crores. It registered a growth around 80% in 2006 and is expected to grow at the same pace. According to researches, Indian content market, which encompasses music, gaming videos etc, is expected to grow 10 times in the next five years. Arvind Rao, CEO and co-founder, Onmobile is of the view, "In India, Bollywood music, sports and 3Gs ie girls (read adult content), games and gods are popular, where as globally, girls, gaming, music and sports are immensely popular, and rule the mobile content market."

Music- It's Ringing!
Mobiles phones today are ready to take a serious bite off the apple ipods pie. Researches say that ratio of mobile phone user listening to music on their mobile phones to dedicated digital music players is 2:1. It takes no genius to know that mobile music is taking off in a big way and it is being complimented with unprecedented growth in the demand of multimedia phones. In-Stat forecasts that multimedia phones will double in unit sales within the next two years. Another 15-country study conducted by TNS depicts that nearly 20% of mobile phone users listen to music on their mobiles, where as only 15% listen on home stereos and 10% on dedicated digital music players like the iPod.

It is clear that with these trends, mobile music is set to take the content market by storm. According to Rajiv Hiranandani, country manager, Mobile2win, "Ring tones and ring back tones today monopolize the content VAS market and this trend is prevalent globally as well. A report by Juniper research says that mobile music is currently the largest sector of mobile entertainment and 80% of mobile music revenues come from ring tones.

Full song downloads are also touted to be the next hot thing in the country, with mobile phones coming with softwares such as iTunes and compatibility to play various formats of music, mobiles are replacing the traditional juke boxes at a fast pace. Japan currently leads the full song downloads segment. The data published by the Recording Industry Association of Japan, for the first time for digital sales of music during 2005, depicted that in the fourth quarter of 2005, mobile-based downloads in Japan totaled 77.4 mn, up 7% on the previous period, for a wholesale value of $81.3 mn. Mobile downloads during the fourth quarter accounted for 94% of all downloads on a volume basis, and 91.4% in terms of value.

In India, music content market is around Rs 500 crores-50% of the total content market of the country. It is mainly driven by the passion for Bollywood and most of the content consumed is around Bollywood.

Recently Bharti AirtTel introduced a simple music ringtone, call-back tone and full track download system where the user has to take his phone near the sound system in which his or her favourite song is playing, dial 393, wait 30 seconds and get a download. As mobile networks evolve, there will be more and more innovative music based applications and services. Facilities such as sharing songs during phone calls, listening to an audio stream during a call, or sharing a play list that contains click-to-buy links to a music store will be a reality soon. Despite all the promises that music content holds, there are a number of technical issues that need to be addressed before mobile music comes mainstream. Battery backup and memory need to be improved and the easy to use features of the ipod or the mp3 player need to be incorporated in a mobile phone. An appropriate content delivery mechanism needs to be developed along with a feasible billing system.

With the mobile phone firmly established as a credible digital is music player, mobile music-related applications are becoming increasingly important.

Gaming
Gaming is another hot application that is going strong in the mobile VAS market. Such unprecedented growth is expected to take the global revenues from mobile gaming to $17.6 bn by 2011. Another boost for the gaming market has been the penetration of GPRS phones not only worldwide, but in India too.

In-Stat reports that mobile gaming has taken the Asia Pacific region by storm with revenues reaching to $1.56 bn in 2005. Juniper research says that Asia Pacific region contributes around 38% of the total revenues generated from mobile gaming. The present chunk of revenues comes from Japan and South Korea, but China and India are being touted as future growth drivers.

The Indian mobile gaming market is set at Rs 200 crores and going by the recent KPMG survey, it is projected to grow to $336 mn by 2009 and will grow 700% by 2010.

Apart from traditional embedded games, online multiplayer gaming is picking up quickly globally as well as with in the country. Recent research conducted by Nokia depicts that Globally; 45% mobile gamers play multiplayer games at least once a month where as 56% of Indian mobile gamers play multiplayer games at least once a week and 25% play it daily-the average length of the session being 39 minutes.

The industry expects mobile gaming to catch up from the second half of 2007. Meanwhile the prime need for a perfect gaming experience is better handsets and better network. The user today looks for game play, replay ability and the latest genre of the game, in addition to better graphics and great content.