Indian Media Magazine

Corrigendum: Blyk informed us that they’re “no longer an MVNO, this stage ended in Sept 09. We are a messaging media, focused on young people. Ilkka Teppo leads the team (country management) in India.”

Earlier: Blyk, the Finland based, former advertising funded mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) has opened an office in Gurgaon, India, and appointed Ilka Teppo as Country Manager, a company spokesperson confirmed to MediaNama. Teppo, who will be responsible for the rollout of Blyk’s operations in the country, has been in Blyk since 2007. Prior to joining Blyk, Teppo was with telecom manufacturing Elcoteq, before which he had co-founded a location aware messaging company called Wiral. More on Blyk in our earlier story, here.

Blyk declined to share any details of their hiring or launch plans in India, saying they will share more info when appropriate, but we are aware that they are hiring. The launch becomes all the more interesting, particularly since telecom operators will have to look at differentiations beyond pricing. Last year, it was reported that Blyk was in talks for a partnership with Reliance Communications (frankly, the Reliance ADA Group is the default co for deal stories).

While MVNO’s, which essentially lease dedicated spectrum from telecom operators, have not been allowed in India, there are instances of  ’franchise agreements’ or branding agreements in the country. Recently, the Future Group launched a telecom brand T24, with Tata Teleservices; Virgin Mobile has had a partnership with Tata Telservices as well, and MTNL was earlier seeking franchise partners for its 3G mobile services.

Related:
- More Freebies Please: Ad-Funded MVNO Blyk Eyes India Launch
- Selling Mobile Numbers Like Credit Cards? Tata Launches Retail Telecom Brand T24 With Future Group

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The Reliance Communications India creative pitch for its GSM and CDMA mobile business is in its final stages and three agencies are in the fray – JWT, DDB Mudra and Grey. Senior sources close to the development have confirmed the news. The business is estimated to be upwards of Rs 200 crore.
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Khadi Gramodyog Bhavan, New Delhi, part of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission under the Ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises, is planning to strengthen its marketing efforts. As part of this initiative, Khadi Gramodyog has decided to empanel agencies to conceptualise and implement its advertising strategy for the outdoor, electronic and print media and has invited sealed tenders from Delhi-based ad agencies.
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‘Realtime Reporting’ involves filing a report from the field as it happens, exactly where it happens. Though this has been happening in television news via OB vans, the print (and online) media has remained neutral to these developments. But now, Dainik Bhaskar has taken the initiative to fill this gap by getting around 220 top reporters trained to become multimedia reporters.
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Hindi daily Navbharat Times is celebrating the 60th anniversary its Mumbai edition. The paper got Bollywood actor Vidya Balan to be the guest editor for the anniversary issue on June 29, 2010. Also on the occasion, NBT organised ‘Udaan Awards’ to recognise the contribution of the nine ‘Hindi Bhashi’ people, the Navratna of Society.
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The Central Bank of India campaign revolving around the famous Panchatantra Tales with a refreshing twist make for some interesting viewing. The ads have been conceptualised by RK Swamy BBDO.
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Noel Braganza has joined Digital Law and Kenneth as Creative Group Head – Copy. Braganza’s last stint was with Ignitee Digital Solutions, where he was Senior Copy Writer. He will be reporting to Anil K Nair, Managing Partner, Digital Law & Kenneth, and will be responsible for the creative work in Mumbai.
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Sri Adhikari Brothers has decided on the creative and media agencies for its new music and entertainment channel Mastiii. The channel is expected to launch in the first week of July. The creative duties of the channel will be handled by Madision Creative Cell (the creative arm of Madison World), while the media duties have been awarded to ZenithOptimedia.
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“A Nano in every handset segment”

Lemon Mobiles, one of the new handset players in the Indian market, is looking to garner 6-7% of the handset marketshare in the next three years, targeting 7 million handsets of an approximate 100 million handset market. For this, the company will look to make $100 million investment, including an investment in its own handset manufacturing facility in India. Responding to MediaNama’s question on how they intend to fund the investment, IB Mehra, Executive advisor, Fastrack Communications, was evasive, saying that they could look at all forms of investment, not ruling out private equity placement (though he said that PE players tend to lookto exit quickly), investments from its promoters, or even a listing.

Lemon will use the money raised to expand operations within India, and also launch its brand of handsets in other emerging markets, including Latin America, South East Asia and Africa. In India, Mehra said, a lot hinges on being able to meet their target of garnering 10% of handset retail shelf space.

The manufacturing facility in India will initially assemble handsets and later seek to manufacture them, given incentives to local manufacturing from the Indian government, and the need to derisk imports of handsets from China. Lemon (Fastrack Communications) expects that the facility will account for 20% of its total volumes by the end of 3 years, and will also be used to develop its GPS devices, apart from handsets.

Additionally, the company has plans to introduce 3G handsets in the Indian market, across segments, covering entry level, mid and high-end segments.

Handset Plans

Mehra said that India is a price driven market, so their handset offerings will be value driven; drawing parallels with the TATA Nano, the affordable, albeit low-on-features car from Tata Motors, he said that the idea is to create “A Nano in every handset segment”.

And that’s what Lemon appears to be doing with its handsets – the iQ505 handset that was launched yesterday is a QWERTY handset without GPS, but with several applications on board; trying it out, I found it unnervingly slow and tedious to use, with the interface rather grainy; Would I buy it? No. But priced as low as Rs. 3800, it certainly does appear to be value for money, and I think there is a market that will choose a handset with better features for the same price point.

First Dual SIM Android Device: P1

Mehra said that the company plans to introduce an Android device in the Indian market, which will be the first Dual SIM Android phone, with push email, called the P1, for professionals. He didn’t put a timeline on the launch, but said that the pricing of the device will be in like with their value for money philosophy; it will be the fastest (in terms of processing speed) from the Lemon stable yet. Lemon is also planning to launch Windows mobile devices.

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MapMyIndia, the maps business backed by Qualcomm Ventures, Nexus India Capital, KPCB and Sherpalo Ventures, has entered the rather crowded local business information service with the launch of Dial62, a free driving directions service that also provides local business information. We received the info via SMS yesterday, though it had been reported previously. The service is call center based, and is live from 8AM to 7PM.

However, this is by no means the only voice based driving directions service in  India – Reliance Communications has had such a service live for a couple of years – at Rs. 30 per month subscription, and Rs. 6 per minute. That’s expensive and overpriced, and it’s cheaper for RCOM subscribers to call Dial62 on STD in Delhi at 011-62626262 than calling RCOM.

Our sense it that MapMyIndia is leveraging its strength – in location and driving directions – to enter the local business information space; monetization will eventually be from leads generated for local businesses. This is essentially a voice based version of a map service – free maps are expected to be monetized by local business information, so why not on voice? Maps can not only tell you where the business is, and its contact details, but also how to get there. So far, MapMyIndia has business listings only for the Delhi/NCR region.

The local business information market is crowded, with Yahoo funded AskLaila, Call Ezee, other business information services like Infomedia India/AskMe, Getit Yellow Pages, but is dominated by JustDial, which appears to be heading for an IPO.

Trying Out The Service

I called up 011-62626262, and requested directions from Rajpur Road, Civil Lines, Delhi to the Qutub Minar Metro Station from the call center executive, as well as the location of a restaurant nearby. Within minutes, I received directions to the location – in two SMS’, and a third with the details of the restaurant nearby. I could get used to this (given how often I get lost in Noida and Gurgaon).

But what information did MapMyIndia seek from me? Name, whether I’m an employee or running a business, my email address. They already had my mobile number, and sent me the details via SMS.

What I particularly liked about the service, is that Dial62 also sent me a link to their privacy policy via SMS. Our translation of the privacy policy*:

“The information you share will be used for internal purposes, including contacting you about our services (read “special offers”). We may sell, share or rent personal information in case you are a customer of our search services, where it will be shared with subscribers/advertisers, and you shall be deemed to have given consent for it. We may have entered into a contract with customers for non-disclosure of confidential information, but this policy does not apply to the practices of organizations that we do not own or to people that we do not employ or manage (read as “our customers”).

*do correct us, MapMyIndia, if we’re wrong about this.

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