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Roamware, a global provider of mobile roaming solutions, is a world leader with over 60 percent of global market share in voice and data roaming solutions, according to Bobby Srinivasan, president and CEO of Roamware (News - Alert). The company serves over 2 billion mobile users in over 140 countries across 382 mobile operator networks. They also boast a portfolio of over 30 solutions for voice and data roaming for mobile network operators using technologies like GSM, 3G and CDMA. Recently the company acquired a leading mobile financial services company and is now the global market leaders in that segment too.

 

TMCnet recently had the opportunity to interact with Srinivasan, who is also the founder of Roamware. Part I of our interaction follows.

 

 

BS: Since Roamware’s inception in 2001, Roamware has contributed significantly to the roaming industry, helping it reach its present shape and size. Back then, Roamware introduced several solutions leading to the advent of active roaming, improved roaming coverage, acted as the key catalyst for roaming alliances, virtual home experience, introduction of roaming information services and enabled data roaming services.

 

The key motivation behind forming Roamware was the opportunity we saw in the underdeveloped roaming offering, and that the potential for growth it presented. We had a strong belief that we could develop and offer game-changing applications that would transform the business. And we lived up to our goals. Today, Roamware enjoys a 60 percent global market share and has its products and solutions deployed across 146 countries with over 400 mobile operator networks and service providers as customers and our services are available to over 2 billion mobile users globally.

 

 

BS: Before the existence of Roamware, the roaming landscape looked very different from the one we see today. It was characterized by passive roaming, inferior user experience, patchy roaming coverage, ultra-premium pricing, undeveloped services and was limited to postpaid roaming.

 

Today, thanks to the progress the industry has made, roaming is ubiquitous and available to both post-paid and pre-paid users. Roaming solutions have enabled users to enjoy seamless coverage and a host of services beneficial to them in the roaming environment. Although roaming prices have decreased over the years, consumers are still faced with bill shocks while traveling internationally, especially on data roaming. To help counter this, we have created unique solutions. One such solution offered by Roamware is the Data Tariff Advisor and Roaming service controller. This allows operators to advise their subscribers about the applicable roaming tariffs in the visited location. This allows subscribers to be in greater control of their roaming expenditure, set limits on data usage while roaming and avoid bill shocks.

 

 

BS: Currently the roaming market is still unsaturated and has high growth opportunity. According to Informa (News - Alert) Telecoms and Media’s forecasts, the number of subscribers that will use roaming services will increase from the current 13 percent to 17 percent of total global subscribers by 2013. This equates to 600 million roamers globally by end-2013. Given that over 1.1 billion cross international borders annually, the potential for growth in roaming is significant in the short term.

 

In addition to addressing this market opportunity and our existing business models, we have made a foray into the emerging mobile financial services industry. Less than a fifth of the global population has access to traditional structured banking services, while mobile services are available to over four billion subscribers. This presents a mega opportunity for growth in mobile financial services, particularly in serving the unbanked. There is also a huge opportunity to offer services to the banked community and in the still largely informal remittances market.

 

 

BS: With the rise in travelling and globalization, the roaming industry is expected to grow exponentially. Globally, the roaming market is expected to grow from $137 billion to $160 billion by 2013. In India, the Indian international roaming market is expected to be worth close to $500 million this year alone. With over a 60 percent market share we expect further consolidation and strengthening of our position in coming years. Currently on an average our customers have 4 Roamware applications. Roamware today offers over 20 solutions and with a platform that enables new solutions by utilizing the core platform components and existing network integration, the market opportunity from our existing customer base alone is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Mobile financial services are a key growth segment for us.

 

According to Gartner (News - Alert), the number of mobile payment users worldwide will increase 70 percent this year alone, with the expectation of having 190 million mobile payment users in 2012. 

Tower Group estimates that by 2013, an estimated 300 billion transactions, worth more than $860 billion will be conducted using a mobile phone.

 

It is therefore fair to say that the market for innovative technology enablers is a substantial one, and Roamware will be able to garner a fair share of this market by leveraging its asset base of existing customer relationships and global presence.

 

Roamware’s opportunity is to exploit their 400-plus mobile operator customer relationships across over 146 countries to become the leader in the provision of mobile financial services, and help realize the ambition of banking the unbanked.