MUMBAI: OnMobile Global Limited, a leading provider of telecom value-added services (VAS) has entered the mobile market in Egypt by launching value added services for Vodafone Egypt's customers'. The rollout is part of a global deal between Vodafone and OnMobile to offer services such as Ring Back Tones and M-Radio to customers in emerging markets.

In a span of just 60 days, the service has doubled to 2.1 million subscribers and witnessed 2.6 million downloads, resulting in 30% revenue increase for Vodafone Egypt. Music related products- specifically ring back tones (RBTs) have huge unrealized potential in Egypt owing to the popularity of Arabic and Egyptian music in the region. OnMobile's award winning RBT based products with their easy search, content discovery and single download options tapped into this interest and successfully leveraged it to double subscriber base for Vodafone Egypt.

Arvind Rao, CEO, Chairman & Co-founder, OnMobile said, We are very excited about our debut in Egypt and the drastic increase in subscriber base is highly rewarding. The value addition generated by our VAS products bears testimony to our ability to innovate and our in-depth understanding of the markets we operate in. We look forward to introducing the entire gamut of our VAS portfolio in Egypt by partnering with Vodafone....

Ahmad Essam, CMO, Vodafone Egypt said, We are thrilled at the initial success of VAS in Egypt and look forward to more of our subscribers in Egypt adopting this service. We are hoping to add on to the existing repertoire of value-added services by launching new services that will enrich our customers' mobile experience in partnership with OnMobile....

The mobile market in Egypt is one of the most promising mobile markets globally and the leading one in North Africa. According to Dataxis Intelligence, the Egyptian mobile market has registered over 25 million new subscribers during the last two years, representing a 79% uptake, 38% on a yearly basis and 9.5% quarterly growth on average. In March 2010, the number of mobile phone users stood at 57.6 million, bringing the penetration rate to more than 74% of the population, compared to just over 43% two years earlier. However, negative ARPU growth continues to affect operators in this space. According to IEMR Research, the industry average ARPU growth rate was -20.8% in Q1-2010. In such a scenario, value-added services like RBT will play an increasingly important role in driving operator revenue.