Telcos need to reinvent from mere carriage service providers to becoming more of tech companies. There is a growing need to adopt revenue streams/style of companies like Google/Facebook etc. US & Europe have been witnessing convergence, where telcos are now acquiring/foraying into tech & media businesses. Something that is need of the hour and also now endorsed at policy & regulatory level. The same has only now caught fancy of Telcos in India, majorly due to downward pressure on tariffs by new entrant(s) & OTTs. 

The biggest asset for a Telco is its subscriber base, which is still not adequately leveraged – Emergent trend globally for leveraging subscriber base (beyond just earnings from tariff/VAS services) is targeted mobile advertising. Telco’s mobile subscriber base is the audience network waiting to be monetized and the canvass i.e. delivery platform ofcourse is the smart phone. The pressing need to have real time information on the go has turned smart phones into advertising inventory for advertisers.

When it comes to monetizing mobile inventory, Telcos have a discernible advantage as they have access to static & real time subscriber data (and that’s a lot of diverse data that can help predict customer behaviour). Such information/data is gold mine for advertisers/companies looking to scale up marketing/advertising campaigns. Ofcourse any such implementation has to be conducted within the contours of privacy/data protection and regulatory regime; and there are definitely ways to do it. With increased uptake of mobile smart phone and data usage, targeted mobile advertising is surely the next gold rush, especially with particularly with plummeting ARPUs.