Telecom companies go all out to keep users glued to digital platforms

Telecom companies are waging a bitter battle, only this time it’s not the usual scramble for more subscribers but rather making existing users increase their stickiness in using their own digital platforms such as My Jio, Airtel Thanks or the Vi app as a way to gain more revenue.
 
Apart from helping customers to recharge their phones, the apps provide them access points to other digital offering, making them potentially new sources of non-mobile revenues. 
 
The ratio of daily active users as a percentage of monthly active users is a marker of customer stickiness. According to BofA Research, based on February 21 Sensor Tower data, the ratio for Vi was 17 per cent and for Airtel Thanks, it was 16 per cent.
 
This is far ahead of My Jio, the largest player in the market in terms of subscribers, with a ratio of only 11 per cent. The lower figure could be an indication that its customers use it merely for recharging instead of for other offerings. Yet the monthly active users of Airtel and Jio are pretty close, ranging between 120-150 million. Vi is lower at sub-50 million.
 
Telecom operators are also pushing OTT subscriptions and advertising-led channels such as Airtel Xstream, Jio TV, and Vi Movies and TV. They are launching an attack on broadcaster-led players like Hotstar and independent players like Netflix, and trying to partner other content players in revenue share agreements.
 
It is here that they enjoy the advantage of being able to leverage their large mobile subscriber base. Based on Jefferies research, the OTT subscription platforms might have been dominated by broadcaster-led players but Jio TV, Airtel Xstream and Vi Movies and TV collectively have around 17.1 million daily active users.

 
Broadcaster-led players which include Hotstar, Sony Live, ZEE5 and Voot have 29.7 million daily active users. Hotstar contributes 20.2 million to the total figure. What is interesting is that the percentage of daily active users to monthly active users for Airtel Xstream and Jio TV is similar to that of Amazon Prime and ZEE5. But for Netflix the ratio, at 24 per cent, is much higher.  The new push to monetise digital platforms is part of a clear strategy by telcos for non-mobile revenues. Just a few weeks ago, Airtel said it was looking at spinning off its digital assets that have over 190 million users and could be listed. These are Airtel Xstream, Airtel Thanks, and Wynk.
 
Reliance has housed its digital assets in Jio Platforms. Its combined media platforms are a formidable 41 million daily active users which, according to Jefferies, is close to Instagram with 43 million daily active users and half of Facebook with 86 million.
 
Vi is also looking at ways to monetise its digital assets in the same way.
 
All the telcos are basing their plans on the expected growth of the digital advertising market which should rise from $2.7 billion in FY2020 to $6.6 billion by FY2025. Even digital subscriptions are expected to go up by $0.3 billion from FY2020 to $1.4 billion in FY2025.