I was at lunch today with an entrepreneur friend who runs a mobile content service in India. Among other things the discussion centered on to the 3G (third generation mobile network) launch in India (refer to my earlier post). Here’re some of the key points from our discussion:
1. These are still early days for 3G in India - and no one is expecting a wind-fall in a hurry. Not in the short to mid term at least.
2. The operators are going to start by offering 3G services to their existing high end customers. And these customers will potentially drive most of the projected 3G revenues - at least until a killer-app/ service diffuses to the center of the market.
3. SMS/ Text messaging will continue to drive bulk of VAS/ data/ marketing revenues.
4. One area that could get hugely impacted by 3G is UGC (User Generated Content) . UGC model in India is currently limited to text based content - driven largely by SMS. 3G could help service providers bring in the rich media into the mix - and help drive up the current (low) usage exponentially.
5. 3G also means that the customers will be able to access services through their broad band connections directly from the content providers ( picture WAP sites streaming rich media/ content directly onto the 3G devices).
The last point seems quite interesting. The growth of a “Direct to Consumer” style business model - outside of the “Walled Gardens” (operator controlled customer access) might just provide the balance of power in the ecosystem which is skewed acutely in the favor of operators in the current context!