The Play is Huge

To add to the problems of falling ARPU being faced by Indian mobile operators, the allegations of graft, regulatory uncertainties, and stiff competition is making their business growth plans unviable. In a move to reverse the downward growth trend, the mobile operators have launched 3G mobile services in different telecom circles of our country. Despite the heavy investments by Indian mobile operators in 3G mobile phone technology, services have struggled to take off in India.

Inability to launch appealing VAS is being attributed as one of the key reasons for the slow uptake of 3G services. As we have only scratched the surface of VAS opportunities to be delivered through the 3G technology, tremendous growth potential exists with opportunities like m-health (mobile health) in India.

M-health is set to make an entry into India's primary health centers (PHCs) and sub-centers as the health ministry plans to go hi-tech. The 3G technology and applications of m-health encompassing tele-medicine and mobile health raise hopes of enhanced revenue generation for mobile operators and taking healthcare services to the remotest and the most underprivileged sections of society that have been untouched by physical infrastructure in the past decades.

The revenue generation opportunities are huge and require the Indian ecosystem players to overcome numerous challenges and stay focused on key scaling factors so as to harness the mobile health opportunity.

Revenue Opportunities

The opportunities in the global mobile healthcare market are estimated to be worth between $50 bn and $60 bn in 2010, prompting operators to step up their initiatives in this emerging sector. The mobile health market in APAC is expected to comprise almost 30% of the global market and reach $6.8 bn, corresponding to mobile health spend per capita of about $1.6, by 2017.

India with 8% market share is expected to contribute significantly to the mobile health opportunity in APAC. The rising use of smartphones, tablets, and other wireless devices is expected to create a 3,000 crore market in India by 2017.

It is estimated that mobile-enabled monitoring services, like those offered for chronic disease management, will make up 65% of the worldwide m-health market and account for $15 bn in revenues by 2017. The second largest segment will be diagnostic services, which will generate $3.4 bn in revenues worldwide, and make up 15% of the global m-health market.

The third largest market opportunity include medication and treatment adherence devices and services. These will make up 10% of the overall market or about $2.3 bn. There are, therefore, tremendous revenue growth opportunities and the play is huge. All that is needed is building a credible base of killer applications through the exclusive partnership of various key stakeholders.

Potential Applications

M-health applications will continue to grow as physicians, patients, and health plans use technology to address changes in healthcare delivery. Application modernization and increasing agility will continue to be a solid driver for application development spending, apart from other emerging dynamics of cloud, mobility, and social computing.

The emerging trends are directing application development demand towards newer architectures, programming languages, business model, and user skills. The key emerging m-health applications are going to be: Information/awareness, medicine reminder service, remote consultation, remote monitoring, remote data collection, communication and training for healthcare workers, disease and epidemic outbreak training, diagnostics, emergency services, and help lines. The Indian mobile application development market is expected to grow past the $227 mn mark in 2012.

Different Revenue Models

The uptake of m-health applications in our country need a sustainable business model. Choosing the right business model-'for profit', 'nonprofit', or 'hybrid' is essential to implementing the relevant m-health applications. However not every business model for m-health applications will work in every setting.

The interactions of health, technology, and finance sectors with each other and with government would go a long way toward determining the kinds of applications expected to flourish.

The 5 most common m-health business models expected are:

#1 Bitpipe Provider-reduced to transmission of data to a control unit with no specific customization. Potential offerings for the MNO would be connectivity;

#2 Enabler of the Connectivity Provider-Connectivity tailored for m-health applications with respect to business models, service levels, SIM provisioning, security features. Potential offerings for the MNO would be connectivity and platform;

#3 Joint Partner-MNO focused on partnerships to develop m-health application. Potential offerings for the MNO would be connectivity, platform, solution/application/device, billing, and medical devices connected to platform;

#4 White-label Partner or Lead Partner-offer full end-to-end solutions including vertical-specific and client customized solutions (hardware and hosted solutions). White-label partner will not push labeled solutions into the market. Potential offerings for the MNO would be connectivity, platform, solution/applications/device, billing, and medical devices connected to platform.

Challenges

The key challenges related to adoption of m-health applications are:

• Developing and implementing them (m-health applications) with progressively deeper content and greater functionality
• Fragmentation of the industry's development leading to duplicated efforts, resulting in competing proprietary platforms instead of unified open platforms on which integrated mobile applications can operate together. Interoperability of m-health applications not only with each other but also with other mobile services and existing health information systems remains an area of concern
• Challenges to current business models and their role in expanding access like: Innovating for diseases that affect the poorest of the poor; providing access to the most vulnerable populations, including the rural, the poor, and especially women and children; developing primary health care systems; expanding availability through differentiated pricing and alternative business models; adapting products and approaches to local conditions
• Rural areas requiring low-cost, rugged and high-resolution devices portable medical devices/handsets
• 3G technological challenges in input, display, transfer and processing of data in English and Indian languages (especially for people with different levels of literacy), security and integration with medical devices
• Government policies and regulatory regime yet to fall in place for scaling up m-health applications
• Close cooperation between mobile operators, handset vendors, hospitals, medical device manufacturers, health insurance companies, the government authorities, regulator, content and application providers for m-health services to grow exponentially; and,
• Building a long-term funding plan. Refreshed investment flows from the industry players needed to drive the growth of m-health applications.

Conclusion

An ecosystem needs to be created for m-health which would be distinct from the mobile ecosystem. Applications and content developers must come up with the services most relevant for the Indian users in their own languages. Certification, interoperability, and standardization would lay the foundations for powerful m-health applications.

Experimentation with different business models based on sticky applications would provide deep insights into the sustainability of m-health initiatives and further enhance sustained revenue generation opportunities for the mobile operators.

Ved Prakash Singh
The author is group telecom expert, CPA Global
vadmail@cybermedia.co.in