{"id":75,"date":"2012-04-24T11:19:52","date_gmt":"2012-04-24T05:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/?p=75"},"modified":"2014-05-05T15:56:26","modified_gmt":"2014-05-05T10:26:26","slug":"how-mobile-network-operators-can-use-mobile-apps-to-boost-arpu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/24\/how-mobile-network-operators-can-use-mobile-apps-to-boost-arpu\/","title":{"rendered":"How Mobile Network Operators Can Use Mobile Apps To Boost ARPU"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve used 3G in the UK several years ago but it was only recently that I \u201conboarded\u201d on to this high-speed mobile network in India. I took baby steps by first signing up for the entry-level plan offered by my Mobile Network Operator (MNO). This came with 200 MB upload \/ download and cost INR 100 (~US$ 2). Twenty days later,Onavo<\/a>\u00a0told me that I was running periliously close \u2013 as in 94% \u2013 to exhausting my monthly quota of free data usage. For excess usage, my MNO quoted 2 paise per 10 KB, which had sounded innocuous when I\u2019d first heard it. Kudos to my MNO\u2019s marketing department for packaging this tariff in such an obfuscatory manner, but I thankfully realized that it translated to INR 2,000 per GB (~US$ 40 \/ GB). I shuddered at this exorbitant rate \u2013 around 8-10X of landline based broadband plans \u2013 and quickly decided to upgrade to the next higher plan which offered 500 MB for INR 200 i.e. INR 400 \/ GB.<\/p>\n

\"pic01<\/a><\/p>\n

Having used my new smartphone for so many things that I have previously done on a PC or telephone, I explored the possibility of doing the aforementioned upgrade transaction via my smartphone. Unfortunately, I couldn\u2019t, since my MNO had no mobile app. What was worse was that its INR 200 \/ month plan was launched recently and it wasn\u2019t possible to activate it even via SMS (which is how I\u2019d activated the first plan before). The only way forward for me was to call the MNO\u2019s Customer Care.<\/p>\n

In general, I\u2019ve never liked call centers, what with their phone trees, endless amount of waiting and listening to hold music. But, after my glorious experience with mobile apps during the previous month, an encounter with call center almost seemed like torture. I procrastinated for several days. But, eventually I went ahead and made the call because the alternative \u2013 incurring huge charges for busting my data plan \u2013 was even more unpleasant.<\/p>\n

This experience got me thinking about whether I\u2019m ever likely to buy additional products and services if my MNO forced me to use the phone or, worse still, told me to visit its physical store to place the order. Unlikely, especially for simple and discretionary items. On the other hand, if I got the opportunity to browse its Value Added Services (VAS) at my leisure using a smartphone,\u00a0the chances of my ordering something or the other would go up dramatically.<\/p>\n

If personal experience is anything to go by, MNOs and TELCOs have a tremendous opportunity to boost their ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) by\u00a0launching mobile apps and letting their customers manage their accounts and order value added services through them. This is even more true in the case of 3G and other high ARPU customer segments. Such apps don\u2019t even have to be enabled for (micro)payments, which could be a major source of friction for the relatively small amounts applicable for many VAS items: I noticed that, when these purchases happen over the phone, the MNO simply adds the charges to the monthly bill and presumably uses the recording of the telephone call as proof of order. For an order placed via mobile apps, clickstreams \u2013 or, are they called \u2018tapstreams\u2019 on smartphones? \u2013 should provide even more unequivocal proof.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

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  2. Per Second Billing Does Not Portend Financial Ruin for Mobile Network Operators: Part-2<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Mobile Subscribers Will Vote With Their Handsets, err\u2026 Wallets<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I\u2019ve used 3G in the UK several years ago but it was only recently that I \u201conboarded\u201d on to this high-speed mobile network in India. I took baby steps by first signing up for the entry-level plan offered by my Mobile Network Operator (MNO). This came with 200 MB upload \/ download and cost INR … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-marketing","category-retail","category-mandatory-category"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1669,"href":"https:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/1669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}