Mobile commerce in India is gaining quite a bit of momentum, and why not. India currently boasts more than 200 million mobile subscribers growing at nearly 100% yoy. Online E-commerce is yet to catch up, but it also has started picking up pace.
With this kind of growth it is hardly a surprise that India’s largest mobile service provider – Bharti Airtel – is all set to join the M-Commerce bandwagon in a big way.
According to the latest news, Bharti will launch host of value-added services, primarily related to M-commerce applications.
The application includes a platform that allows both its prepaid and postpaid users to link their credit card, debit card or bank accounts to their mobile connection. (This facility has already been thrown open to its pre-paid users and Bharti subscriber can use this facility to top up or pay the bill of other cellular users also). Also on the cards is an extension of these M-commerce applications to allow customers pays their utility bills and also pay for their railway tickets and hotel rooms via their handsets.
Paymate is another mobile payment gateway that offer similar service to what Bharti plans to offer.
Very recently, Magicbricks, one of the leading real estate portals came up with their mobile real estate portal.
There are also host of other M-Commerce application providers in India. However, with entry of Bharti in this arena, M-Commerce in India will take much bigger proportions. Remember, they already have more than 50 million strong subscriber base who are readymade customers for M-Commerce applications.
