Jatin Ahluwalia, CEO, vRock Mobile

What are the strategies that vRock is adopting to appeal the market?

We aim at bringing more mobility and youth centric programs to the world. Along with bringing the sports on the mobile screens we want the users to enjoy the same. We truly want to innovate and bring something new to the subscribers.

vRock got the IPL rights this year. What was the user response?

vRock in partnership with IPL made out to huge global cross-section of its fans on a real time basis and engage them in various activities including score and match-day updates, mobile sms and mms contests, live audio mobile commentary, and regular alerts. All of which marks a new chapter in terms of convergence of IPL content onto the mobile phone and to an enhanced fan experience.

The consumer response was overwhelming. We send lot many live score alerts (subscriptions & on-demand); SMS contests — including daily contests and through the IPL 2010 season, not to mention live in-stadia sms contests. Fans also experienced live mobile commentary with contests over an interactive voice response (IVR) system using the latest mobile telephony technology. Also the fans were to get the latest IPL news through SMS subscriptions and also get post-match party gossip, match statistics; and loads of MMS pictures, exciting content. For the same we collaborated with One97 for IVR partnership.

What are your plans once 3G gets in place?

I am excited about the larger bandwidth which will be available once 3G services gets in place. Value added services will become more exciting for the subscribers. On one hand , it will boost ARPUs of the operators on the other , it will also boost the user experience. Especially, the audio-video applications will get a major thrust. There will be some serious improvements from WAP to video capabilities which will be an added edge to the next phase of growth which we are about to witness.

What are the future plans of the company?

See, we have had a very good experience when it comes to delivering the sports updates on the mobile devices . Next on my mind is music. We seriously want to foray by bringing the best of music on the handsets.

The company has also bagged exclusive mobile rights for the Asia Cup till 2014. The Asia Cup covers One Day International Cricket matches between India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. We have acquired the rights from Nimbus Sports via Offspin Sports & Entertainment thus further strengthening its mobile cricket portfolio in addition to IPL. The rights are applicable across India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Archana Singh

archanasi@cybermedia.co.in