Quantcast
Channel: IndiaSocial: India Social Media, Digital News, India Social Summit, Case study, » InMobi
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 2

Plenary Session: ‘Mobile as a game changer’ at #IDS2013

0
0

One of the most interesting sessions from Day 2 of IAMAI’s 7th India Digital Summit, from the point of view of the digital marketing space, was the Plenary Session: Mobile Internet as a game changer, moderated by Jonathan Bill, Senior Vice President, Business Development and Innovation, Vodafone India. The other panelists were Neeraj Roy, Managing Director and CEO, Hungama; Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder and CEO, One97; Vishal Maheshwari, Senior Director & Head, Sales, Yahoo India; Umesh Kulkarni, Founder, Newshunt; and Anil Mathews, Founder and CEO, AdNear.

IMG-20130117-00512

The focus of this panel was to discuss first time users coming from mobile, new users with new demands from rural India, and new synergies between stakeholders.

Anil Matthews raised an interesting point to start with, which is that in India, internet usage is higher on mobile than on desktop computers, and a lot of traction comes from rural towns. Even though these rural users are a lot less demanding, they are a lot more engaged – they are fascinated with the technology and curious to know more, and a lot of focus in the future needs to be on them. Umesh Kulkari agreed with this as well, and expressed the opinion that vernacular content would be a huge demand from these set of users.

On being asked which companies in India could be considered game changers in the field, the panelists agreed that for the most part it was global companies that had really succeeded in the mobile space, Indian companies still had a long way to go. Vijay Shekhar Sharma named InMobi, and said that where monetisation is concerned Google and Samsung are the leaders, though companies like Hungama and Dhingana are also doing well.

Neeraj Roy said that no Indian companies in this space are even billion dollar companies yet, whereas in China there are multiple companies that are worth upwards of 200 billion, and these companies are driven by innovation. There is large scope for innovation in India and he named three areas that are prime: education, payments and healthcare.

The reason for Indian companies not having explored the full potential of mobile was suggested by Vishal Maheshwari – the lack of scale. The first 100 million users in India are all English-speaking users. In order to go forward to reach the next 200 million users, there  is a need to first overcome the language issues and create more vernacular content. He also expressed the requirement for mobile analytics.

A stimulated discussion was followed by questions from the audience. For more updates on the IAMAI 7th India Digital Summit, follow @IndiaSocial.


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 2

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images