28 Mobilution
Data monetization
Data ARPU is set to grow at 15 % in the prepaid market , while data usage is set to grow at 37 %. This during a period where over-all ARPU is set to dip by 9 % indicates that the growth in data revenue would be the majority contributor towards the 7.5 % overall prepaid revenue growth . This is a phenomenon which is true across all regions and all operators . All the operators would be fighting that extra yard for incremental revenue ( knowing that ARPUs are to decline ), hence they all would like to use data as the biggest growth levers .
Traditionally the way of growing data has been by either discounting data costs for the end customers or by giving additional commission to the retailer for promoting data . As data penetration was sub 50s in most markets the approach was more of a broad bases approach . The requirement now would be for much smarter and much tighter segmentation in data coupled with newer avenues of pushing data penetration or sales . Thus the problem of enabling data as a growth lever would be great problem to solve for the operators . ge platform like mobile APP .
About the author : Anand Ota is the Product Manager for Mobile Financial Solutions at Mahindra Comviva . He has completed his masters from Xaviers Institute of Management . Prior to his current stint , he worked with Vodafone , Tata Docomo , ICICI Bank and also tried his luck with a start-up named Peel-Works . He is driven by numbers and has a keen interest in the ever evolving telecom space