Tech Mahindra to bid for BCCI content on cells

Mumbai-based IT solutions and service provider for the telecom industry, Tech Mahindra, is in the race to provide and manage infrastructure to host the Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) cricket content on cell phones. The BCCI is expected to shortly float tenders for the same.

Sources close to the development said the company, which has been increasing its focus on value-added services (VAS), approached the BCCI to facilitate the hosting of content on mobiles. The BCCI Chairman (marketing committee) Lalit Modi too confirmed the development. "Yes, Tech Mahindra has contacted us but we have asked them to follow the tender route," he said. Tech Mahindra is also in talks with the international sports body "� International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) "� to host content for mobile devices.

The company plans to take care of all the back-end infrastructure requirements and make the content compliant for different phones and handheld devices. In case of a global contract, the company would provide support for different requirements of each country in terms of language, currency, pricing, subscription, and managing the content, billing and collection processes. Company officials denied to comment on the development.

However, Rajesh Chandiramani, corporate head-marketing, Tech Mahindra, said, "We have done similar deals in the past. It's about time we took it to a higher level. While it is difficult to say how big the value-added services market globally is, it contributes close to 10-15 per cent of the revenues for telecom companies. This gives a lot of scope for such services."

A year back, the company had entered into a similar agreement with the Union of European Football Association (UEFA) to provide solutions for the delivery of match content direct to mobile devices across the world. UEFA, hosts two popular football tournaments "� the Champions Cup and the Champion's League "� which has millions of fans.

As a part of its tie-up with UEFA, the company will provide a platform for uploading live results, video clips as well as statistics of the UEFA matches.

It will also connect 30-50 service providers during the first year of going live commercially. The UEFA deal is expected to give the company an entry into the global services network, which can be leveraged for similar contracts.

According to Juniper Research, the global market for sports, leisure and information content (infotainment) is set to grow from just under $4.2 billion in 2006 to $9.5 billion by 2011.

The largest geographic market is forecast to be Europe, which is expected to account for 40 per cent of the revenues over the 2006-11 period, with Asia"�Pacific contributing 33 per cent and the rapidly growing North American market 18 per cent. While Asia-Pacific is forecast to top the infotainment traffic over the period, higher price levels would make Europe the largest revenue generator.