LinkedIn in India

Facebook in India

Source : All Facebook

JaxtrSMS - The World's First Free and Open Texting Application

JaxtrSMS - The World's First Free and Open Texting Application: "Free Mobile Texting. Local And International.
Send messages to all in your address book whether they have the app or not."

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Hotmail Co-Founder Seeks Next Hit in Free SMS - India Real Time - WSJ

Interesting concept though the propositions seems to be primarily free messaging via your mobile phone.


No further comments on professional proprietary grounds

Full article


by Shefali Anand


Sabeer Bhatia’s latest idea is to initiate a mobile application that allows users to send text messages for free.

For Sabeer Bhatia, the quest for the next Hotmail continues.


The latest idea from the co-founder of Hotmail is a mobile application that will allow users to send text messages to any mobile in the world for free.


The application – titled JaxtrSMS — is available for all phones which have data plans, including the iPhone, BlackBerry, Nokia and other phones which are based on Android or Java platforms. The application is available to users of all phone service-providers"

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Facebook gets with MediaTek To Scrape Emerging Markets Barrel

From the handset vendors perspective the benefit is obvious - creating value by enriching the end user experience by offering differentiated services. Extent of device integration will be interesting to look out for


Trefise Team, Forbes Blog
Nov 11, 011

Facebook’s mobile reach may extend beyond just smartphones and tablets. The 750 million+ member-strong social network teamed up with MediaTek last week, a software and chip designer for low-end phones. Through this partnership, Facebook hopes to develop its social networking app for low-priced featured phones.

Facebook, which is the world’s largest online social network, competes with sites like Google and MySpace.

Developing Markets Are Key to Facebook’s Future

Currently, the U.S. has the biggest Facebook user base at around 156 million members with Indonesia and India at positions 2 and 3 respectively.

However, developing countries like India have a population in excess of 1 billion. Given this huge population base and continuously increasing internet penetration, Indian Facebook users are expected to overtake both U.S. and Indonesia in the future.

MediaTek comes in

While still in a nascent stage, this partnership should pave the way for developing Facebook applications for subsidized, low-end phones, which might cost less than $50.

This allows for Facebook to reach many low-income groups in countries like India that cannot afford a laptop, smartphone or tablet. We believe this is an important, pro-active initiative from Facebook, which can provide a further upside to its already large user base.

Zynga reports 11.1M daily active users on mobile platforms

Inevitable extension to the mobile domain! Play across screens (mobile, PC, TV) would be interesting to watch them for


Mobile Business briefing
November 21, 2011


Games developer Zynga hit more than 11.1 million daily active users for its mobile games in October, according to an amendment to its S-1 prospectus filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Outlining Zynga’s strategy, the filing said it plans to continue mobile growth after daily active users increased 10 fold between November 2010 and September 2011. The company currently has 11 mobile games for iOS, Android and mobile web.

“We will continue to make our games accessible on a large number of mobile and other internet-connected devices and invest in developing and acquiring mobile development talent, technologies and content,” the company added in the filing.

The Future of Shopping - Harvard Business Review

The Future of Shopping - Harvard Business Review

Bharti Enterprises and SOFTBANK CORP. Announce Mobile Internet Joint Venture

Very interesting combination with definitely a maverick in Softbank! Would be interesting to understand the role they will play - Investor, incubator or service provider.

•  JV to invest in three key areas: Social Media, Gaming, e-Commerce
•  India, the world’s second largest mobile market with over 850 million subscribers, offers immense growth opportunities for mobile internet

New Delhi/Tokyo, October 20, 2011: Bharti Enterprises, one of India’s leading business groups (“Bharti”), and SOFTBANK CORP., parent corporation for one of Japan’s leading internet company groups (“SoftBank”), are pleased to announce the formal launch of Bharti Softbank Holdings Pte. Ltd. (“BSB”), a 50:50 controlled joint venture between Bharti and SoftBank established to focus on mobile internet.

BSB will actively participate in the mobile internet ecosystem’s growth in India, with an emphasis on three key areas: Social Media, Gaming, e-Commerce. BSB aims to further accelerate the pace of development of India’s mobile internet market, which, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, had over 850 million mobile subscribers as of July, 2011.

“India, which has emerged as the second largest mobile market in the world, stands at the cusp of another revolution – mobile internet,” said Mr. Kavin Bharti Mittal, BSB’s Head of Strategy & New Product Development. “With a fast growing economy, a large youth population and access to cheaper and faster data, there is a unique opportunity to build services ground up for mobile, especially in a country where the first screen for most is a mobile device. We are delighted to partner with SoftBank, whose vast experience in this area will help us build and invest in services for India.”

“Over the decades, SoftBank has endeavoured to develop new markets for Internet businesses, starting from the U.S., China and now India,” said Mr. Atsushi Taira, a Director of BSB. “I believe that through the mobile internet, we can change people’s lives in India and empower each one of them, which will contribute to society’s exponential growth. I am very excited to be a part of this vision and delighted to have Bharti, with its unparalleled vision, knowledge and experience with emerging markets, as our partner. This partnership represents a significant step in SoftBank’s journey towards becoming No. 1 in the mobile internet industry.”

Windows Phone Marketplace passes 40,000 apps

Published by Rafe Blandford, Allaboutwindowsphone

November 16th 2011

After celebrating its first anniversary by passing the 35,000 app mark in mid October, the Windows Phone Marketplace has now passed the 40,000 app and games submission mark. Content is being added at the rate of 165 items per day. In the last 30 days, 85% of submissions were apps and 15% were games; 68% were free, 23% were paid and 9% were paid with free trial.

At the time of writing, 40,189 items have been published. Of these, 10,882 were added in the last 90 days and 4,770 were added in the last 30 days. These items come from 10,731 different publishers.


These numbers are from our own tracking system, which is also used to power the All About Windows Phone Apps & Games section, where you can browse all of the applications and games, and install them via links to Zune Desktop, the web based Marketplace, or install them directly by scanning the QR Code with Bing Vision on your smartphone.


At the current growth rate, we estimate that Windows Phone Marketplace will reach the 50,000 app mark in the second or third week of January 2012. However, it is possible that this mark may be reached before the end of the year if submission rates accelerate.


The graph below shows the growth in the total number of applications published to the Windows Phone Marketplace over the last year.

Growth of Windows Phone Marketplace. Note: November 2011 is not complete. Figures up to November 16th.

In common with other application stores, the total number of published items is not the same as the number of items available to consumers. Of the 40,198 items published to the Marketplace, just over 5,500 are no longer available (removed by Microsoft or withdrawn by the publisher). In addition, some apps are only available in select markets. This means the number of available items to a consumer, in a given market, is lower than the number of published items. The current approximate figures are: US (33,950), UK (32,332), France (31,672), Spain (30,482), Italy (30,346), Germany (30,260), Australia (30,2650), India (30,371) and Singapore (29,423).  


During the last four weeks, an average of around 165 new content items have been added each day. This number is significantly higher than in the summer. The most likely explanation for the increased number of apps being added is a growing momentum behind the platform, and the release of Mango which roughly coincided with the start of the increase. The end of the quiet summer season and the announcement of the first Nokia devices may also be contributing factors. 

Apps and Games added each week to Windows Phone Marketplace. Note: Week 46 is not yet complete. Figures up to November 16th.

Content by category

The chart below shows the proportion of content in each of the Windows Phone Marketplace's top level categories. As you might expect, games is the single biggest category (15%). The next three biggest categories are books + reference (15%), tools + productivity (14%) and entertainment (13%). This means the four biggest categories (out of 17) make up 57% of the content.

Vodafone Group 1H Interim results (incl. India snippets)

Great read. Picked out some interesting snippets and portion on India. No comments on professional proprietary grounds

Full report @ http://www.vodafone.com/content/dam/vodafone/investors/financial_results_feeds/half_year_30september2011/p_halfyear2011.pdf

Data is increasingly becoming larger and more important for them. Refreshing view on data services in terms of partnering and new growth areas.

Vodafone Group Half Yearly Report

Group

·         H1 revenues @ £21.9 bn

·         EBIDTA margins @ 32%

·         Data revenue growth +23.8%; annual run rate £6.3bn

·         Focus on areas of growth potential

1.     Supermobile: accelerating mobile data growth opportunity

2.     New Services: expanding in new growth areas

3.     Total communications: continue to develop services

·         Supermobile

·         Europe smartphone penetration @ 22% [37% in contract and 12% in pre-paid]

·         Europe data traffic @ 21% (smartphone), 79% (mobile broadband)

·         Europe monthly data usage per user (MB) : 130 (smartphone), 1,400 (mobile broadband)

·         Strong take-up of successful own brand devices

·         Services

·         New approach. Wal Garden -> Open Standards, Fully vertically integrated -> Integration of Voda + 3^rd parties, Single Operator approach -> Joint operator approach

·         New Services. Growth Opportunities :

1.     Push mobile advt (launched in most mkts)

2.     Financial services (27 m money transfer users on m-pesa, $670 mn transferred each month)

3.     Operator billing (charge to bill service with Google, Nokia, RIM. 15% of apps paid for & growing)

4.     Machine to Machine (6.2 m global connections)

5.     NFC (JVs in UK & Germany). @ £250 mn (opportunity £10bn by 2020)  

·         Total Communications

·         In enterprise the key trends are mobility, unified communications and cloud services

·         Convergence in the enterprise presents opportunities for Vodafone and partners

·         Retail : New retail experience model in deployment

·         H2 priorities for Emerging markets : Continue to focus on growth and profitability Stimulate voice and data usage

Europe

·         Data @ 15% of service revenues

·         Smartphone penetration @ 22% [37% in contract and 12% in pre-paid]

·         Mobile internet @ 35% of data revenues

·         Data attach of smartphone base @ 59%

India

·         145 mn subscribers, 95% pre-paid

·         H1 revenue @ £2.1 bn (~10% of group)

·         Q2 service revenue growth +20.1%, growing revenue share

·         Headline voice prices increased, stable market prices

·         EBIDTA margin @ 25% (£535 mn)

·         Operating loss of £9 mn

·         Operating Free Cash Flow @

·         Q2 voice minutes up 22%, stable sequentially

·         Q2 data revenue +62% @ £89 mn driven mainly by 2G, 28m data users. Data & messaging contribute to 8% and 5% of service revenues

·         M-pesa launched in Q2

Google Music is open for business

Google finally launches Google Music and runs head on into Apple iTunes and Amazons Music service !! It's all about the cloud (back-up,sync,stream), sharing with the community, artist promotion and music repertoire now


Google Music = Digital locker in the cloud + sync service + store + artist hub. 

• Pricing = Free, $0.69, $0.99, $1.2
• Individual locker can store upto 20k songs
• Stream or play offline (download & play) from any device
• Sync (purchased+uploaded music) across devices
• Sharing with community via Google+
• Music store also integrated into Android marketplace
• 13 million songs available
• Artist hub - Artist promotion + content management page. Rev sharing @ 70:30 (latter for Google) in case of music directly made available via Artist Hub

Google Blog

11/16/2011

Last May at Google I/O, we launched Music Beta by Google with a clear ambition: to help people access their music collections easily from any device. Music Beta enabled you to upload your personal music collection (up to 20,000 songs) for free to the cloud so you could stream it anywhere, any time. Today, the beta service evolves into a broader platform: Google Music. Google Music is about discovering, purchasing, sharing and enjoying digital music in new, innovative and personalized ways.



Google Music helps you spend more time listening to your collection and less time managing it. We automatically sync your entire music library—both purchases and uploads—across all your devices so you don't have to worry about cables, file transfers or running out of storage space. We’ll keep your playlists intact, too, so your “Chill” playlist is always your “Chill” playlist, whether you’re on your laptop, tablet or phone. You can even select the specific artists, albums and playlists you want to listen to when you're offline.

Purchase and share

We also want to make it easy and seamless for you to grow your music collection. Today, we added a new music store in Android Market, fully integrated with Google Music.

The store offers more than 13 million tracks from artists on Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and the global independent rights agency Merlin as well as over 1,000 prominent independent labels including Merge Records, Warp Records, Matador Records, XL Recordings and Naxos. We’ve also partnered with the world's largest digital distributors of independent music including IODA, INgrooves, The Orchard and Believe Digital.

You can purchase individual songs or entire albums right from your computer or your Android device and they’ll be added instantly to your Google Music library, and accessible anywhere.

Good music makes you want to turn up the volume, but great music makes you want to roll down the windows and blast it for everyone. We captured this sentiment by giving you the ability to share a free full play of a purchased song with your friends on Google+.

Exclusively on Google Music

We’re celebrating our launch with a variety of music that you won’t find anywhere else, much of it free. There’s something for everyone, with a variety of free tracks to choose from:

• The Rolling Stones are offering an exclusive, never-before-released live concert album,Brussels Affair (Live, 1973), including a free single, “Dancing with Mr. D.” This is the first of six in an unreleased concert series that will be made available exclusively through Google Music over the coming months.
• Coldplay fans will find some original music that’s not available anywhere else: a free, live recording of “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall”, a five-track live EP from their recentconcert in Madrid and a remix of “Paradise” by Tiësto.
• Busta Rhymes’s first single from his upcoming album, Why Stop Now (feat. Chris Brown), is available for free.
• Shakira’s live EP from her recent concert in Paris and her new studio single, “Je L’Aime à Mourir” are both being offered up free.
• Pearl Jam are releasing a live album from their 9/11/11 concert in Toronto, free to Google Music users.
• Dave Matthews Band are offering up free albums from two live concerts, including new material from Live On Lakeside.
• Tiësto is offering up a new mix, “What Can We Do” (feat. Anastacia), exclusively to Google Music users.

Artist hub

Whether you’re on a label or the do-it-yourself variety, artists are at the heart of Google Music. With the Google Music artist hub, any artist who has all the necessary rights can distribute his or her own music on our platform, and use the artist hub interface to build an artist page, upload original tracks, set prices and sell content directly to fans—essentially becoming the manager of their own far-reaching music store. This goes for new artists as well as established independent artists, like Tiesto, who debuts a new single on Google Music today.



Starting today, Google Music is open in the U.S. at market.android.com, and over the next few days, we will roll out the music store to Android Market on devices running Android 2.2 and above. You can also pick up the new music app from Android Market and start listening to your music on your phone or tablet today. And don’t forget to turn your speakers up to eleven.

Posted by Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President, Mobile

Fitch Ratings : 2012 Outlook: Indian Telecommunications Services = Negative

Relatively fair assessment. 2012 is likely to be a year where telcos focus on consolidation and streamlining of operations. However, a liberal M&A policy could again trigger some frenzied action in the sector !


Fitch Ratings
November 17, 2011

Full Report



Rating Outlook : Negative


Overall Negative Outlook: Fitch Ratings believes the nationally-owned and six smallest
private telecommunications companies (telcos) will continue to suffer operating losses in 2012
– due to high competition, low average revenue per user (ARPU) and weak balance sheets.
The nationally-owned telcos will continue to be saddled with high employee costs. Fitch
expects that the fifth- and sixth-largest operators may manage to break even in EBITDA terms
in 2012.


Stable Top Four: Fitch anticipates that the credit metrics of the four largest telcos should
improve in 2012, benefitting from a more stable pricing environment and positive free cash flow (FCF) generation. However, all operators remain exposed to significant regulatory risk.


More Regulatory Clarity: The final version of the National Telecom Policy (NTP) and
Spectrum Act 2012 should bring much-needed regulatory clarity to the issues of spectrum refarming, the imposition of spectrum renewal fees, and one-time charges for excess spectrum. However, the agency notes that the 10 October 2011 draft NTP proposals to allow the spectrum-sharing and trading, voice over internet protocol (VoIP) and the removal of national roaming charges, should together prove negative for the top four telcos.


Financial Flexibility to Improve: The agency expects the top four telcos to generate breakeven or marginally positive 2012 FCF (Fitch definition – excluding one-time regulatory cash outflows), supported by improved cash flow generation and reduced capex.


Tariffs to Remain Stable: Although India is one of the most competitive telecom markets in
the world, Fitch expects that 2011‟s stable pricing environment will be sustained through 2012.
Bharti Airtel Limited‟s (Bharti, „BBB−„/Negative) initiative to raise on-net voice and SMS tariffs
by 20% was followed by most of its competitors. Fitch therefore expects average revenue per
minute (ARPM) to remain steady, at about INR0.41-0.44.


Subscriber Growth to Decline: Fitch anticipates that wireless subscriber growth will fall to an
average of 7-9 million per month (H111: 14 million) – due to telcos‟ moves to report only active
subscribers, and the likely de-linkage of spectrum allocation from reported subscriber growth.
Nevertheless, subscriber growth prospects have remained strong, as active subscriber
penetration was just 50.7% at end-August 2011.


Revenue Growth: The agency believes that the stable pricing environment in 2012 will more
than offset the reduced subscriber growth, leading to higher revenue growth than in 2011.
Voice and SMS revenue should continue to dominate the 2012 revenue mix, while data should
contribute only minimal revenue.

E-com Now Passé; E-com Enablers, Re-imagineers, Give Me More! | VCCircle

Absolutely agree. In view there exists tremendous potential in the eCommerce enablers egment right from aiding discovery, logistics, payments to CRM. 


E-com Now Passé; E-com Enablers, Re-imagineers, Give Me More! | VCCircle:

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Makeover Time: Why Five Cos Re-invented Their E-com Biz | VCCircle

eCommerce in India is likely to go through a few more evolutions before we have clear winners and winning categories.

Flipkart and possibly Snapdeal and Fashion & You are the only ones to seeming to break-out of the pack yet.

Preethi J, VCCircle

November 16, 2011

In India’s fast-paced e-com space, companies need to re-invent strategies and operations to future-proof growth.
Pivoting is a buzzword in the entrepreneurial community, mainly because it represents core start-up ideologies such as risk and adaption. Some tweaks are done in order to push a business to the next level, others to escape falling into a dangerous situation or to keep up with the latest trends and not miss an opportunity when it is within one’s grasp. In India’s fast-paced e-commerce sector, we witness these all the time as companies re-invent their strategies and operations to future-proof growth. Techcircle.in looks at five such companies (exclusively.in, Indiatimes Shopping, Taggle, Myntra, Yebhi) which have gone through a makeover and gives you the low-down on how and why they have done it.

For full article click link above.

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Canaan Partners Leads $45M Round In Ashok Soota’s Happiest Minds | VCCircle

The deal makes the two-month-old company one of the most highly capitalised start-ups in the Indian technology landscape

Madhav A. Chanchani, VCCircle

Investors in this round also include Intel Capital, founder & chairman Ashok Soota and other founders of the company.


Happiest Minds Technologies Pvt Ltd, an IT solutions and services start-up by ex-MindTree Ltd chairman and co-founder Ashok Soota, has raised $45 million or Rs 229 crore in its first round of funding, led by Canaan Partners. Intel Capital, Soota and other founders of Happiest Minds also invested in the round. The break-up of the investment from venture funds and founders was not disclosed.

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Sales of Mobile Devices Grew 5.6% in Q3 of 2011; Smartphones Up 42%

Vincent Chang, Cellular News | 15th Nov 2011

Worldwide sales of mobile devices totaled 440.5 million units in the third quarter of 2011, up 5.6 percent from the same period last year, according to Gartner, Inc. Non-smartphone devices performed well, driven by demand in emerging markets for low-cost devices from white-box manufacturers, and for dual-subscriber identity module (SIM) devices.

Sales into the channel reached 460 million units. Gartner analysts said this increase was because of inventory build-up in the channel partly because of the shipping of new devices late in the quarter but mostly to prepare the channel for the holiday season. Gartner expects most of the build-up to be sold by the first quarter of 2012.

"Our forecast for the end of the year remains broadly in line at a worldwide level as regions such as Asia/Pacific and the Middle East and Africa make up for weaker performance in the Western European market," said Annette Zimmermann, principal analyst at Gartner based in Munich.

Smartphone sales to end users reached 115 million units in the third quarter of 2011, up 42 percent from the third quarter of 2010. Sequentially, smartphone sales slowed to 7 percent growth from the second quarter of 2011 to the third quarter of 2011. Smartphone sales accounted for 26 percent of all mobile phone sales, growing only marginally from 25 percent in the previous quarter.

"Strong smartphone growth in China and Russia helped increase overall volumes in the quarter, but demand for smartphones stalled in advanced markets such as Western Europe and the U.S. as many users waited for new flagship devices featuring new versions of the key operating systems," said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner. "Slowdowns also occurred in Latin America and the Middle East and Africa."

"Some consumers held off upgrading in the third quarter because they were waiting for promotions on other new high-end models that were launched in the run-up to the fourth quarter holiday season," Ms. Cozza said. "Other consumers were waiting for a rumored new iPhone and associated price cuts on older iPhone models; this affected U.S. sales particularly."

Despite a drop in market share, Nokia continued to be the worldwide leader in mobile device sales as it accounted for 23.9 percent of global sales (see Table 1). The second quarter of 2011 was the low point for Nokia, and the third quarter brought signs of improvement. Dual-SIM phones in particular, and feature phones generally, maintained Nokia's momentum in emerging markets. Heavy marketing from both Nokia and Microsoft to push the new Lumia devices should bring more improvement in the fourth quarter of 2011. However, a true turnaround won't take place until the second half of 2012.

Worldwide Mobile Device Sales to End Users by Vendor in 3Q11

(Thousands of Units)

Vendor	3Q11		3Q10
	Units	Market Share	Units	Market Share
Nokia	105,353.5	23.9%	117,461.0	28.2%
Samsung	78,612.2	17.8%	71,671.8	17.2%
LG	21,014.6	4.8%	27,478.7	6.6%
Apple	17,295.3	3.9%	13,484.4	3.2%
ZTE	14,107.8	3.2%	7,817.2	1.9%
IM	12,701.1	2.9%	12,508.3	3.0%
HTC	12,099.9	2.7%	6,494.3	1.6%
Motorola	11,182.7	2.5%	8,961.4	2.1%
Huawei	10,668.2	2.4%	5,478.1	1.3%
Sony Ericsson	8,475.9	1.9%	10,346.5	2.5%
Others	148,990.9	33.8%	135,384.1	32.5%
Total	440,502.2	100%	417,085.7	100%

Samsung became the No. 1 smartphone manufacturer worldwide as sales to end users tripled year over year to reach 24 million; sell in was high as the channel built inventory. Samsung was the No. 1 smartphone manufacturer for the first time, ahead of Nokia in Western Europe and Asia. Gartner attributes this to the strong performance of Samsung's Galaxy smartphones, which now cover a broad range of prices, and a weaker competitive market. Analysts expect more competition in the fourth quarter of 2011, not least because sales of the iPhone 4S, 4 and 3GS will capture share from Android manufacturers.

Apple shipped 17 million iPhones, an annual increase of 21 percent, but down nearly 3 million units from the second quarter of 2011 because of Apple's new device announcement in October. Gartner believes Apple will bounce back in the fourth quarter because of its strongest ever preorders for the iPhone 4S in the first weekend after its announcement. Markets such as Brazil, Mexico, Russia and China are becoming more important to Apple, representing 16 percent of overall sales and showing that the iPhone has a place in emerging markets, especially now that the 3GS and 4 have received price cuts.

The Android OS accounted for 52.5 percent of smartphone sales to end users in the third quarter of 201, more than doubling its market share from the third quarter of 2010.

"Android benefited from more mass-market offerings, a weaker competitive environment and the lack of exciting new products on alternative operating systems such as Windows Phone 7 and RIM," Ms. Cozza said. "Apple's iOS market share suffered from delayed purchases as consumers waited for the new iPhone. Continued pressure is impacting RIM's performance, and its smartphone share reached its lowest point so far in the U.S. market, where it dropped to 10 percent."

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 3Q11

(Thousands of Units)

Operating System	3Q11		3Q10
	Units	Market Share	Units	Market Share
Android	60,490.4	52.5%	20,544.0	25.3%
Symbian	19,500.1	16.9%	29,480.1	36.3%
iOS	17,295.3	15.0%	13,484.4	16.6%
RIM	12,701.1	11.0%	12,508.3	15.4%
Bada	2,478.5	2.2%	920.6	1.1%
Microsoft	1,701.9	1.5%	2,203.9	2.7%
Others	1,018.1	0.9%	1,991.3	2.5%
Total	115,185.4	100%	81,132.6	100%

Source: Gartner (November 2011)