Mumbai: A fall in the growth pace of data consumption<\/a> is prompting telcos to double down on their content offerings. India’s three major telcos — Reliance Jio<\/a>, Bharti Airtel<\/a>, and Vodafone Idea<\/a> — are working on giving subscribers a richer viewing experience and expanding the breadth and quality of their offerings — from audio books to short-form videos — to help increase user stickiness and revive data consumption<\/a>.
As more people substitute the TV remote for the mobile screen to watch live sports, events such as the Indian Premier League (IPL<\/a>) provide an opportunity for telcos to push data top-up packs and drive consumption, say industry<\/a> executives and experts.
Jio, for example, is banking on 4K IPL<\/a> telecast on digital to drive up data consumption, in addition to introducing multi-camera angle views, and other experience-enhancing features for live sports. Jio is a unit of Reliance Industries<\/a>, which owns a majority stake in Viacom18 which has the rights to the IPL for 5 years.
Vodafone Idea<\/a>, on its part, is working on 4K\/8K content which would typically consume more data, while Airtel<\/a> has increased focus on podcasts on its audio streaming platform Wynk.
All three telcos saw less than 1% growth in data consumption per user per month for the fiscal third quarter, indicating dwindling appetite.
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Data Appetite Important to Monetise 5G<\/a> <\/strong>
Overall revenue growth also sequentially slowed to 1.8% in the quarter, compared with 3.2% in the fiscal second quarter.
Operating costs climbed, with higher selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses rising 40-50% on-year due to the spike in customer churn, underlining the need for telcos to act to retain subscribers.
“We have reached peak 4G<\/a> data consumption levels now. So, the top-tier users, about a fourth of the total, consume around 2GB data a day. To expand this further is the challenge,” said an industry<\/a> executive at one of India’s top telcos.
One of the ways to do so is through increased engagement with content, led by video, and aided by audio and gaming. Considering the ongoing 5G<\/a> rollouts, a compelling content offering is a must to whet data appetite, which can then be used to monetise 5G, said experts.
All three telcos have content offerings under their umbrella. These include a library of movies, TV shows, web series and music download options through tie-ups with various studios and labels. The challenge is to create a differentiated content proposition, clubbed with a lucrative value proposition, industry executives said.
The former is a challenge since none of the telcos actually create any content, and hence are drawing from a pool available to their competitors. Price sensitivity, meanwhile, makes the second a challenge as well.
Airtel<\/a>, through its Xstream product, has tried to address this by having multiple OTT services on a single platform.
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