Russian mobile operators in 2014 missed about 15-20 billion profit from instant messengers and VoIP services-communication, which include WhatsApp, Viber, Skype and other apps. The company has not yet decided how to compensate for these losses.
According to J’son & Partners Consulting, the most popular messenger in Russia was Skype, which I use about 70% of the respondents. After the next group of projects belonging Mail.Ru Group (“Mail.Ru Agent, ICQ, internal messengers “Classmates” and “Vkontakte”), WhatsApp, Viber, QIP, Facebook Messenger.
“The situation is changing rapidly, such as WhatsApp and Viber already closely compete with Skype in popularity, and in large cities, most likely, has already surpassed”, — said the head of the wireless technologies Department, J’son & Partners Consulting j’son & partners consulting. The total penetration rate of messengers in Russia by the end of 2014 amounted to 78%, indicates CNews.
The loss of the Russian operators from messengers represent about 2% of their total revenue, the newspaper notes. At J&P believes that the company can compensate for the loss by partnering with OTT services, but still have difficulty with the choice of specific models of interaction.
“The basic model of interaction between mobile operators with OTT providers of communication services are to release a co-branded SIM cards and special tariff plans with different bonuses for subscribers. More promising models of partnerships lie in the use of open platforms that allow OTT providers to integrate it systems operators and participate in the division of revenue”, — analysts say.
The total losses of the world’s Telecom operators from OTT services in 2014 amounted to about $14 billion, analysts say. In 2013, the operators because of the messengers fell short of us $32.5 billion, reported at Ovum.
As the analysts, one of the ways of protection for operators of their income is blocking such services. However, according to J&P in 2014, none of the mobile operators in the world was blocked by OTT services and very few (5%) considered considered the possibility of providing their own messengers subscribers (43% in 2013).
