LAHORE - SALMAN ABDUHU -

The growing user base of new messaging applications have severely hampered SMS revenue for telecom operators in markets like India, Singapore, Indonesia and Pakistan, industry sources said. According to them, messaging applications like Nimbuzz, are finding tremendous success in the Asian market owing to high popularity of mobile internet in these regions. Telecom giants have been forced to identify new ways of compensating for the sudden loss in revenue.
Pakistan telecom giant, Mobilink has partnered with Nimbuzz, one of the key messaging players from Asia, to give its 35 million subscribers access to the platform at a minimum cost irrespective of the data consumed.  The partnership is an augments app-operator relationship not only in Pakistan but also in other parts of Asia. Recently a leading telecom operator from India, Aircel had also partnered with Nimbuzz on similar lines to drive data usage.
Nimbuzz, a 150 million user strong communication platform is aggressively looking at partnering with telecom operators across the world.
Telcos are extremely relevant in the Asian markets and will continue to evolve in the years to come. It strongly believes in creative disruption. Operator partnerships not only help them to drive data usage amongst subscribers but also allow us access to users which we may not have had previously.
Partnerships with global internet brands allow telecom operators to drive data usage amongst their existing users like never before. It also gives operators the opportunity to reach to the strong user base of these strong global brands.
Tie-ups with mobile internet companies give operators the added benefit that they missed out on during the PC era when social networks constricted themselves only to the mercy of the computer. Telcos are aggressively looking to capitalise on the consumer shift from PC to mobile to grow their existing customer base.