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At Gurgaon-based software professional Praveen Chandra's home, the cable TV connection has been cut off — not because he didn't pay the bill but because his son is in Class 12. But Chandra is not sacrificing TV. He gets his daily dose of news, entertainment and cricket on his smart phone through mobile TV.
Post the 3G rollout, service providers such as Airtel and Idea Cellular report that there has been a jump in TV viewing on-the-go. Ask them for number of subscribers and they are a bit cagey, though.
The memorably named Mundu TV, an offering from digital messaging and contents solution firm Geodesic, however, claims to be adding 8,000 to 9,000 new users every day.
“The number of minutes watched every day surpasses 1,00,000. So far, the total consumption on Mundu TV has exceeded 35 million minutes,” says Kunal Lagwankar, Product Manager, Mundu TV.
If new rollout Jigsee, a mobile video streaming technology solution offering from two Canada-based entrepreneurs, takes off, the number of phone users of video could grow exponentially. Launched in India this Independence Day, the service, set up by Ray Newal, a former Yahoo executive, and Areef Raza, an ex-RIM employee, claims it is not targeting a few million smartphone users, but looking at a wider market of mass phone users globally.
“Ninety five per cent of Indian mobile subscribers are unable to access videos because they don't have 3G or smartphones and can't get video streaming services such as YouTube. Our service is focused on those with basic feature phones — that's an estimated 500 million people in the Indian subcontinent alone,” says Newal.
The pick-up factors
In India, the craze for video is certainly there. Despite the poor penetration of smart phones, in a recent report, Nielsen had ranked India fourth, worldwide, in terms of mobile video viewership.
Mobile video and TV players think several factors will help the viewership jump.
For one, operators are now proactively, rapidly, introducing new services, the phones are getting better and better with manufacturers addressing challenges in video content, such as battery consumption, more memory, and so on. A host of mobile applications, solutions and technology related to better delivery of video have come up, and of course, the biggest factor of them all — the growing content library.
Not a day goes by without announcements that a channel is now offering a mobile version of its programming. Sony, HBO, Discovery, UTV, NDTV are all offering more mobile TV programming.
A lot of money is also flowing into developing mobile TV applications or content. Jigsee Inc, for instance, raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from Indian Angel Network and Sequoia Capital. Apalya Technologies, dealing in interactive, on-demand Mobile TV services, raised $7.5 million in Series B-funding earlier this year. In 2009, it had got funded by IDG and Qualcomm.
What are you looking at?
On the content front, there has been a veritable explosion — from Bollywood to news to stock analysis to sports, edutainment and spirituality.
Jigsee, for instance, already claims to have built a 1,00,000-minute strong library. Airtel offers 57 channels, from sports to fashion to news. Idea says it offers 130 channels to its subscribers and the list is growing. Mundu TV offers 16 prime satellite TV channels ranging from news to music.
Says Lagwankar of Mundu TV: “We see heavy traction of users watching Entertainment content. The average viewing time per user for Bollywood entertainment and niche shows on NDTV Goodtimes is higher than average seen for other channels.”
According to Sashi Shankar, chief marketing officer, Idea Cellular, “Entertainment and News definitely lead the league table. Interestingly, we have been observing high uptake of Regional channels amongst the users in recent months. However, during a major sports event such as World Cup or IPL, there is heavy traffic onto Sports channels.”
Mundu TV's Lagwankar says the viewing follows a typical pattern — viewing (minutes consumed) is high during travelling times in the morning and evening, between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. in the afternoon and then high viewing during prime time and late evening hours.
The growth challenges
The services are there, the content is falling in place, and admittedly the opportunity is huge — Newal, when he drools over the prospect of the huge rural masses who would lap up video content, is not off the mark.
Yet, there will be challenges in pick-up. The biggest is cost. Although all the service and content providers insist their content is cheap, users such as Praveen Chandra, who have ended up paying three to four times their normal bill by using video, point to the hidden costs.
It's a bit like the early days of the Internet when you bought dial-up packages and ran through the downloadable limit within no time. On the surface, mobile TV package charges may be as nominal as Rs 40 per week for 80 minutes of viewing daily, but there could be hidden costs, such as data browsing charges. Most mobile TV subscribers say they just cannot figure out the billing structures.
Operators are aware of this barrier. “Video viewing consumes a lot of data. That is why the service is already reaching the user at a heavily discounted price. Movie watching is priced at as low as Rs 10/day or Rs 50/month for movies pack,” says Sashi Shankar of Idea Cellular.
Perhaps there are lessons from Japan and Korea where mobile video consumption has seen the biggest rise.
Gimmicky innovations, such as Sony's brand new type of music video that can be watched only when two people sit together and club their mobiles, have revolutionised the space. The ‘pair movie' produced in 2009, where half the video is played on one mobile screen and the other half on the other mobile screen, was played 4,00,000 times in one month and is still being downloaded.
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