Cellular operators are focused on tapping additional revenues from social media. Even as the data usage on the mobiles is on the rise, specific services like Facebook and Whatsapp are on the operators’ radar. “We are moving away from offering quantum of data to offering internet service. When consumers are using internet services for social network, messaging, browsing and emails, there is no reason for the operators to serve and charge for the data in MBs and Gbs. Uninor is putting an end to these confusing tariffs,” said Satish Kannan, circle business head, Andhra Pradesh. Uninor, a majority owned subsidiary of Telenor Group offering services in six circles in India, has announced special packages for both of these. For instance, it is offering one hour access to Fb at 50 paise and unlimited access to the social networking site for a day at Re 1, Rs 5 for a week and Rs 16 for access for a month. It is offering the Whatsapp access for Re 1 for one day, Rs 5 for a week and Rs 15 for access for a month. According to Kannan, 50 per cent of industry incremental revenue in Andhra Pradesh was to come from data in 2014. For Uninor, data consumption grew by 97 per cert in 2013 and almost about 50 per cent of the incremental revenues in 2014 were expected to come from the data segment. The VAS and data segment now accounted for 11 per cent of the total revenues. Its revenue for the quarter July- September 2013 was Rs 56.98 crore and Rs 58.04 crore during the April- June quarter. It had 4.4 million subscribers as of Feb 2014. Its ARPU during July- September was Rs 42.85 and Rs 44.19 the previous quarter, according to the COAI data. According to Kannan, about 22 per cent of the users are already using data. The data users have grown by 121 per cent in number. More than 50 per cent of India’s mobile internet users are active on Fb (100 million) and Whatsapp (40 million). The average time users spent on social media was about 2 hours 26 minutes and about 57 per cent of the mobile users were using social media apps on their phones and about 29 per cent of mobile users were using location-based services. Anticipating the increase, Uninor has revamped its infrastructure to handle the 2x data by enhancing is packet core nodes and transmission and compression technologies. “We are hopeful of a 100 per cent increase in internet revenues as well as the user base,” Kannan said. However, Uninor users have to purchase other data packs to browse or access things that are not FB and Whatsapp. About a fortnight ago, Aircel, telecom service provider with pan-India operations, it offered free Facebook for its new as well as existing users. It offered access to Facebook App, Facebook Messenger and mobile version to users on existing or new connections. The existing customers were given 50 Mb data for 30 days while the new customers were given 50 MB per month for a period of 60 days, according to Deepinder Tiwana, Circle business head, Andhra Pradesh It also offered special packs at Rs 14, that gave 100 MB ( 2g/3G) data for 28 days and Rs 5 pack gave 25 Mb for five days. It also had other internet packs. Earlier, it had announced Data Mornings, an offer where its customers can access 2G/3G data free of cost for three hours from 6 am to 9 am for a month. Another player Airtel too has offering free Facebook for 30 MB to its users. Browsing external data or the links in it will consume data, for which an internet pack is required or will be deducted on pay as you use basis. Airtel had an ARPU of Rs 167.96 during July-September 2013 and Rs 172.3 during April- June. It had an subscriber base of for 19. 7 million as of February 2014 and total revenues of Rs 942.87 crore during July-September and Rs 950.42 crore the previous quarter. Aircel had 1.9 million users as of February 2014. Its ARPU was Rs 66.03 (July to Sept) and Rs 62.37 (April to June). Its revenues were Rs 36.22 crore in (July to Sept) and Rs 33.31 crore during April to June, according to the COAI data. Source: Mydigitalfc.com
