Russian Mobile Networks Seek Extras

Although mobile subscriber numbers in Russia continue to rise the average revenue per user continues to fall — in some cases falling 22% since 2003 to levels of a third of “Western cellphone networks”. So Russian telcos are looking to content to make up the shortfall, even though it’s still a small percentage of the revenue.

If before mobile networks saw content providers as their insignificant vassals, companies that relied on the operators for their livelihood but which were in a sense providing “extra”, not vital, services for cellphone users, the current drop in incomes has led to a rethink.
Seeing the rising significance content has on pushing the market further, and in bringing in the profits that voice calls are no longer delivering at previous levels, the operators have agreed to ease the contract conditions for content providers by taking a smaller cut of the “vassals” profit.

Now the share of revenue that goes to content providers increases along with the volume sold, and telcos have made it easier to do nationwide deals…
Related stories:
Russian Mobile Content Market To Grow
Russian Mobile Content Developers Form Int’l Strategic Alliance
PlayFon Takes I-play’s Mobile Games To Russia

Comments have been disabled for this post