(15 December 2007 7:40 pm)

NEW DELHI: The mobile value-added services (VAS) market in India has reached Rs 28.5 billion in December 2007 and is slated to rise to Rs 42 billion by 2011, according to Entertainment Network India Limited MD A P Parigi.

Speakers at the 'Growth of VAS' session during the India Telecom 2007 exhibition said ringtones and SMS accounted for a large portion of the VAS market.

According to Mauj People Infocom CEO Manoj Dawane, 800,000 ringtones were downloaded on a daily basis as of March 2007 taking the revenue in this sector to Rs 1.8 billion. This would continue to increase at about 50 per cent.

Speakers addressing the session, however, felt that gaming in India is yet to pick up and 30 per cent of the games downloaded were only in the B and C category towns.

The session was chaired by Parigi.

Mobile advertising was a trend that had come to developed markets, and the global revenue from this was expected to grow to $10 to $ 20 billion by 2011. Social networking was on the rise in India, the session noted.

The Conference had four other sessions: 'Accelerating the Growth of Broadband’, ‘Delivery of Cost Effective Voice & Data Services in Rural India’, ‘Investments in Indian Telecom Sector’, and ‘Enabling Regulatory Framework for achieving the Desired Goals’.

The deliberations during the India Telecom 2007 exhibition and conference held here over the past four days was dominated by the controversy around spectrum, but participants generally welcomed the initiatives taken by the government to bridge the digital divide.

Speaking at the valedictory function today, Minister of State for Communication and Information Technology Shakeel Ahmad did not comment on the spectrum issue which gained importance when Minister A Raja told newspersons earlier in the week that the Ministry will only auction the 3G Spectrum and follow the existing policy for the 2G spectrum.

Inaugurating the meet on 12 December, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had announced that the Group of Ministers (GOM) examining the issue of spectrum availability had been asked to expeditiously suggest a roadmap regarding availability and timing, noting that he agreed that non-availability of spectrum can be a constraint for the growth of the sector.

Noting that the key enabling factors for this sector have been liberalisation, reforms and competition, Dr Singh said the government’s moves for vacation of spectrum by existing users were ‘at an advanced stage and the requirement of making spectrum available for commercial uses is being addressed’.

Raja had said in his inaugural address that in the past three and a half years alone, commitments had been made for about $ 2 billion investment in IT and Telecom sector by 2010. In the telecom manufacturing, there had been commitment of more than $ 2 billion and fresh commitment of about $ 2 billion was expected in the next one year.

The “India Telecom 2007- Digital Divide to Digital Opportunities” was organized jointly by the Department of Telecommunications and FICCI. The objective of the India Telecom 2007 exhibition cum conference was to discuss new growth drivers that are revolutionizing the telecom sector in India and around the world and assess challenges and opportunities associated with new technologies and growth frontiers.