Skip to main content

Whatsapp calling could rob telcos of STD revenue

The recent launch of voice calling on popular over-the-top  (OTT) messaging service app Whatsapp could hit the Indian mobile operators hard, denting their revenue from domestic long-distance operations, which make roughly a fifth of their topline.
So far, the impact of free calling through OTT techniques like Viber or Skype has mainly been limited to international long distance which has led to a decline in their outgoing billion minutes. Since mobile operators don?t earn much from the highly-priced international long distance (ILD) services ? less than 10% of their mobile revenue comes from ILD operation while 18-20% of the revenue is due to domestic long distance or STD ? they have largely escaped an impact.
However, it is the domestic long distance calls which are now under threat of being cannibalised through free calling apps launched by Whatsapp. Though free calling apps like Skype or Viber were always available for making domestic long distance calls, their usage, so far in this segment, has been limited. Whatsapp, which has a dominant share of the OTT market with 52% of mobile users using it, poses the threat of pulling away a large chunk of STD callers to its app.
Once the shift becomes more pronounced, the operators, who had previously taken a hit as free messaging services ate into their SMS business, would lose  a part of their NLD revenue too, and this could be a serious blow to them.
Naturally, telcos are fighting hard to bring the OTT players under some kind of regulatory regime wherein a level-playing field is created between them and the OTT players.
The Trai has brought in a consultation paper on the subject and the process of seeking industry feedback is on.
Whatsapp, which has a dominant share of OTT market with 52% of mobile users using it, poses the threat of pulling away a large chunk of STD callers (Reuters)© image Whatsapp, which has a dominant share of OTT market with 52% of mobile users using it, poses the threat of pulling away a large chunk of STD callers (Reuters)
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The First 10 People Who Sign up On Facebook

The First 10 People Who Sign up On Facebook 10. Zach Bercu sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net “The past eight years have been extraordinary,” Bercu said. A graduate of Emory’s medical school, Bercu spent a year in Israel, where he became fluent in Hebrew. He completed his residency in New York, part of the last intern class at St. Vincent’s, whose “hospital infrastructure crumbled around me,” he remembered of the facility, which closed in 2010. Now a resident at Mount Sinai in radiology, Bercu plans to complete a fellowship in interventional radiology, a form of “micro-surgery.” From his undergraduate years, “whether through Facebook or in person,” Bercu says he “took with me some of the greatest friendships one could have.” 9. Manuel Antonio Aguilar publicogt.com Aguilar calls himself a social entrepreneur “focused on the base o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Do not automatically mark mail as read in Outlook

You may know already, but few of my friends facing the below confusion , so thought of sharing with you. When quickly going through my emails, often we haven’t actually really read the emails but Outlook already marks them as read. This is quite confusing unless we mark them as unread again which takes more time and defeats the purpose of quickly going through our emails. The options for how and when Outlook should mark emails as read can be found in; Outlook 2007 and previous Tools-> Options…-> tab Other-> button Reading Pane… Outlook 2010, Outlook 2013 and Outlook 2016 tab View-> Reading Pane-> Options… The default is set to mark items as read when you select another email. When you disable this option, all mails remain as unread unless you manually mark it as read or double click the message to open it in its own window. Once you uncheck  “mark items as read when selection changes”, the mail will change to read only w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Money Making Apps For Your Android Smartphone

Money Making Apps For Your Android Smartphone Article Category: Manikandan A little while ago, we put together a list of money making apps for iPhone owners . This has quickly become one of our most popular articles and, from the emails we’ve received, readers seem impressed by the options they have. But what about all you owners of Android smartphones ? Surely there must be some apps that can make you money ? Yes, there are. Here’s seven of the best: MintCoins Have you ever thought it would be cool to earn money from doing something as simple as downloading an app? Well, with " MintCoins ", that’s exactly what you get. But, wait! That’s not all; there are a huge number of tasks that, once completed, earn you extra cash. The time honoured offer of cash for completing a survey is one of the standard tasks you’ll be given. But MintCoins has a range of other ways to make extra money with little to no effort. Want ...
Post a Comment
Read more