Crowded indeed, but there is organic demand here.
What this means is that users are looking for solutions on their own rather and downloading apps rather than installing apps as a result of some slick marketing campaign. In itself — Data savings may not be such a great business to get in to but it is a great ‘Trojan’ to embed your product into a user’s phone. The problem with such plays is that few teams (if any) are able to pivot themselves in to a product where users find alternative use cases.
Free Charge was a similar play, when it started. Users were happy to download a mobile recharge product. They needed to top up their phones anyway — may as well get paid for it. But transitioning free charge in to a wallet has proven to be rather painful with mixed results.
The basic premise of incentivized downloads is extremely questionable. I’ve spoken to a number of entrepreneurs who’ve tried these apps to boost downloads. All of them complained about the lack of stickiness amongst customers that these apps bring you, some of them admitted to using such channels to boost downloads ahead of a fundraise! Ahem.
Some of these data saving companies are really well funded. Once again, many of the companies breaking out in India are not Indian.
- mCent for example has raised a stunning $57 Million led by Verizon through its parent company ‘Jana’. They’re active in over 93 countries.
- From Gangnam to Gurgaon: True Balance recently raised $15 Million in a series B from investors like SoftBank Ventures Korea & Korea Development Bank.
- Pokkt’s funding is somewhat more modest — around $7.5 Million (still massive IMO for a space where there is so much latent demand and discounts that come from partner apps). They’re no in our ‘others’ section.
- TaskBucks (don’t confuse them with TaskBob like I almost did) has also raised $ 15 Million from Times Internet. The transaction is said to have give TI a majority stake in the company . Makes sense from BCCL’s point of view.
- Mubble raised from Accel. Round details were not disclosed.
Who lost market share to whom?
Do we see this market disappearing? Data costs still represent a reasonable % of a user’s income. So while costs may come down due to operators like JIO; consumption is expected to Sky Rocket. More than 6X by 20202 if you believe the analysts. So while we patiently wait for hot air balloons and drones that beam down the internet to us; data saving & mobile apps will remain all the rage.
Thanks for your time,
Ashish
- Team KG
Subscribe to our newsletter here
You can reach me on ashish@kalagato.com
