Mobile entertainment likely to touch $5 bn in 2yrs

Mobile entertainment is set to become a $5 billion business in India in the next 2 years, telecom experts said here today.

"The value-added services market in India is growing very rapidly. Industry should add more innovations in this area to cater to its demands," S D Saxena, director (finance) of BSNL, said at the second international conference on Value Added Services (VAS).

VAS could become a major revenue earning services for the telecom industry, he said adding, for new innovations operators and content providers could look into the possibility of "cultural marketing", which includes providing matrimonial service, religious chants among others on mobile phones.

The department is keen to encourage VAS, like mobile TV and 3G services, which has huge demand across the country specially in rural areas, Arun Kumar Saxena, member (services) at DoT, said.

"The major opportunity exists in development of applications for mobile phones on a large scale. Qualcomm is providing laboratory facilities for small Indian developers to work on developing such applications on BREW platform of CDMA technology," Kanwalinder Singh, president (India & SAARC) of Qualcomm, said.

Contextual applications would become the next big thing in VAS, where advertisers could project their message in an entertainment video at the right moment to gain maximum impact on the consumer, he said.