MVAS market to touch INR 30000 Crore by the end of 2013, video songs/music and applications are emerging categories: IAMAI

The Mobile Value Added Service (MVAS) market is expected to reach INR 29,300 crore by the end of FY2013, from INR 26,000 crore in 2012, registering a Y-o-Y growth of 15 percent, according to the latest IAMAI-IMRB report on MVAS in India.

The report notes that the spend on MVAS is expected to increase to 36% of overall ARPU in 2013 vis-à-vis 27% in 2012 on basis of higher data usage. The market size for MVAS for the Consumer segment is worth INR 29,300 crore, while MVAS for the Enterprise segment is pegged around INR 600 crore, states the report.

Mobile subscriber base has declined by around 6% to reach 868 million by the first quarter of 2013. However, with the steady decline in mobile device prices, the rural subscriber base has increased by around 6% to reach 343 million at the end of Q1 2013. The average revenue per user (ARPU) grew by 14% over last year to reach an average of Rs 100. This growth can be attributed mainly to the higher usage of data services by consumers.

The emerging MVAS categories like Mobile Video Songs/music, mobile application downloads are likely to increase and slowly surpass star categories like CRBT which has been the top most MVAS category for number of years.

The falling price of mobile devices is making it more affordable to the consumers to own an Internet-enabled device. As of December 2012, there are 431 million mobile subscribers who are capable of accessing data services/ Internet on their mobile devices. The penetration of subscribers with mobile devices capable of accessing data services has increased to around 50% with a growth of 3.2% from December 2011.

With just 50% adoption of mobile internet currently, the potential for growth looks bright. Drop in price of 3G and 2G services is fuelling the adoption of mobile internet, the report observes.