On the sidelines of VAS Asia 2009, MediaNama spoke to Arvind Rao, CEO of OnMobile Global, a BSE listed Mobile Value Added Services services company. During his keynote address at the conference, Rao had cautioned the industry against expection growth to continue. Dow Jones Newswires has subsequently reported that OnMobile is scouting for acqusitions in US and Europe, and the maximum the company is looking to spend is between$50-60 million. Excerpts from our conversation with Rao: Is the VAS market stagnating? I was telling people to be cautious..have cautious exhuberence. In the past, the industry has grown at 60-70 percent a year, and the expectation is that it will continue. All of us would like for that trend to continue, but I want to be a little more cautious because we're seeing a few things that are new. One is that the ARPU of the new people coming in is substantially low. We have data that shows that people are recharging Rs. 10 at a time, and 60 percent of people have less than Rs. 90 at a time. We cannot charge the way we used to charge 2-3 years ago. That will dampen the way the industry grows in the future. The other one is the TRAI regulations, which is why we have to seek double confirmation on subscriptions, subscriptions on SMS services and outbound dialers... You were going to contest that, right? We didn't contest that, but we gave alternate solutions, a more moderate way of achieving the same…
