MUMBAI: Introduction of services that are personalised, creative and add economic value to the users is a route to enjoy a positive growth in VAS sector (Value-Added-Services) in India.

In mature markets like India, growth will come from  services which are consumer oriented. “Africa and Latin America will be the space that will have significant growth in coming years. Africa will drive the growth in next two-three years for our company and for VAS services. Growth in India will come from richer media services.” Mahindra Comviva digital services head Atul Madan told Radioandmusic.com.

He further added that in digital space we plan to grow at 30-35 per cent. “South-east Asia and Latin America are growing for music based services.” Madan said, “CRBT (Caller Ring Back Tone) is a major contributor to the revenue pie. In mature markets, growth will come from rich multimedia services. CRBT as services will not be able to give a very high growth rate for three-four years. There will be decent growth in next two-three years though.” In Asian markets, Mahindra Comviva has managed to grow the CRBT business by 20-25 per cent annually.

With over 30 large scale deployments and over 150 content partners, the company has become one of the largest content aggregators across Asia and Africa continents. “Average consumption of local content is 65-70 per cent; regional content is 15- 20 per cent and international is 10 per cent depending up the market. The mix at times changes as there is a huge demand for local and regional content. Local partnerships help to understand the local culture and consumer taste that helps to understand consumption pattern,” Madan said.

In Europe and America consumption of content through mobile is high compared to Africa and Asia. “We have seen this gap in other markets, which  we are trying to fill with our multi-channel music and entertainment services,” he stated.

In many emerging markets, Madan says regulators have become more rigid to plug grey areas and regulations have brought sanity in many markets. Revenues from content based services have also improved by 5-10 per cent on a monthly basis through improved business management practices and segmented campaigns, adhering to the regulatory guidelines.