Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has launched three new Aadhaar enabled services – an authentication services using Iris, an authentication service using one time pin (OTP) and an electronic know your customer (eKYC) service. It also announced that currently over 400 million residents have been enrolled for an Aadhaar number, while about 350 million Aadhaar numbers have been issued.

eKYC service: The eKYC service will allow one to authorize service providers to receive electronic copy of their identify proof and address. This will allow instant and paperless verification of of one’s identity and address. Using this service will allow sharing of demographic information including name, address, DOB, gender, photograph and mobile number this was collected during enrollment.

This is quite different to what was said at the Aadhaar Development Track conference organized by NASSCOM in Bangalore in 2011. At the conference, key personnel from the authority including Head of Technology Srikanth Nadhamuni, Chief Product Manager Sanjay Jain and Pramod Varma, Chief Architect had mentioned that the Aadhaar backend will simply verify the info and return a Yes or No response. Aadhaar would not send any other data back, except in cases of National Security, for which protocols were not been decided back then.

This contradicts with the services that UIDAI is offering for Aadhaar enabled services. With the eKYC service, UIDAI shares all demographic information including name, address, DOB, gender, photograph, and mobile number to the service providers. With 350 million Aadhaar cards issued, access to such information not only brings up privacy issues but also security concerns. What stops hackers to get into UIDAI server and collect all private information. Also note that, this information is not that one can easily change. One’s name, address, DOB, gender, and mobile number (possibly) remains the same for a larger part of their life. The fact that this information can be retrieved means UIDAI provides an API to access them, and it won’t be long before the system is abused.

Iris Authentication: With Iris based authentication service, residents will be able to authenticate their identity for availing Aadhaar enabled services by providing a combination of Aadhaar number and Iris image. One just needs to submit their Aadhaar number and Iris image to UIDAI’s Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR) for verification. The CIDR then verifies whether the image submitted matches with the Iris data available in CIDR which was collected during enrollment. Once verified, the CIDR responds with Yes or No message. The government claims that this service can be availed by anyone who has an Aadhaar number including old, blind and those who may have undergone cataract surgery. It also claims that it can offer Iris Authentication for 350 million residents who currently hold Aadhaar number.

Authentication service using One Time Pin (OTP): Through this authentication process, residents will be able to authenticate their identity for Aadhaar enabled service by providing a combination of Aadhaar number and OTP sent to the registered mobile number provided at the enrollment time or subsequent updation.

This process can be carried out by users themselves using their mobile number on a self service mode without having to use biometric authentication device which requires assisted service. To use this authentication method, one has to request for OTP against an Aadhaar, which is sent to UIDAI’s CIDR. CIDR then sends a newly generated random OTP to users mobile or email address. The users then have to submit the Aadhaar number and the OTP received on their mobile number or email address to CIDR for verification. Once verified, CIDR responds with a Yes or No reply.

Aadhaar Kendra: Besides these services UIDAI has also launched Aadhaar Kendra, which will be permanent enrollment centers to facilitate enrollment of residents. Besides registrations, one can also update their biometric or demographic data at these centers. These centers will be located in the Common Services Centers, government buildings or in official premises of the registrar. Note that while earlier these enrollment was free, the registrar at these centers may choose to charge a convenience fee not exceeding Rs 10 for printing e-Aadhaar letter and Rs 12 for update requests.

It has also announced that Aadhaar enabled service delivery will soon be linked to various schemes such as MNREGA wage payments, PDS distribution, payment of social security benefits, among others.

RCOM’s Aadhaar-Based Authentication: Just yesterday, RCOM announced that it will be using Aadhaar’s online authentication process to activate new connections. The company claims to have tested this solution in a non company owned multi brand small retail outlet and claims to be the first telco in the country to offer Aadhar authentication in both company owned and non company owned multi brand small retail outlet. Vodafone had also carried out pilot project offering Aadhaar based verification in October 2012.

New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) has filed an appeal against the New York Court’s dismissal of its lawsuit against Nielsen for the alleged manipulation of TV ratings and viewership data in February 2013, reports LiveMint. NDTV has refused to comment on the matter to the publication while Nielsen has told the publication in an email statement that they cannot comment on it since it is subjudice.

According to the appeal filed by NDTV on May 15, 2013, the company has said that the trial court failed to acknowledge Nielsen New York’s ownership and control of the Nielsen process in India and around the world. It also says that the court erred by disregarding the fact that Nielsen is headquarted with its senior management in New York and thereby wrongly concluded that majority of its defendants were foreign.

In February 2013, the New York Court had dismissed NDTV’s lawsuit against Nielsen on grounds of lack of jurisdiction, however NDTV claims that the court had wrongly concluded that its allegations were against TAM in India, when their allegations was actually against Nielsen New York, for which Indian courts do not have the jurisdiction.

NDTV had originally filed a lawsuit against Nielsen in July 2012, seeking $580 million for gross negligence against TAM and misrepresentations, $810 million for fraud, $125 million for negligence and gross negligence against Nielsen, $125 million for negligence and gross negligence against Kantar, $790 million for breach of contract against TAM, $250 million for prima facie tort against TAM and millions more on various costs including legal fees and punitive damages to be determined by trier of fact during the legal proceedings.

Timeline of the NDTV-Nielsen Lawsuit:

April 2012: NDTV talks with TAM on the manipulation of television ratings.

July 2012: NDTV files lawsuit against Nielsen for alleged manipulation of television ratings.  Do read the NDTV’s whistleblower account which includes details of interactions between NDTV and Nielsen where Nielsen had admitted to inaccuracy and rigging of data and had promised more investment in TAM to improve the process.

August 23, 2012: WPP (parent company of Nielsen) says NDTV’s lawsuit is hypothetical and plans to sue NDTV for defamation. NDTV responded to this statement saying that WPP’s statements were a PR effort and that the case cannot be hypothetical since it is available for public viewing on the website of the Supreme Court of New York.

August 24, 2012: In an interview with Mint, Sir Martin Sorrell, Founder and Chief Executive of WPP Group Plc, said that the lawsuit was not served properly, and that it was a mischief on NDTV’s part. He had alleged that NDTV’s lawyers had called up WPP and had asked if the firm would like to discuss a settlement. He also added that it is NDTV’s attempt to blame TAM for their performance.

August 26, 2012: NDTV had refuted WPP’s claim of asking the firm to discuss a settlement. NDTV also said that Eric Salama, the chief executive of Kantar had sent a confidential mail to NDTV on 8 August, suggesting a meeting to “halt litigation”.

August 27, 2012: WPP refuted NDTV’s claim that WPP is taking Indian market very lightly. WPP further said that they welcome NDTV’s decision to not want to get into a prolonged trial and also clarified about the issue over the interactions on the ‘settlement’ between the two companies.

February 2013: New York Court dismisses NDTV’s lawsuit. NDTV plans to appeal against this decision in the New York Lower Court.

May 2013: NDTV files an appeal against New York Court’s dismissal of NDTV’s lawsuit.

(By Apurva Chaudhary & Vikas SN)

Earlier this week, Twitter introduced a two-factor authentication process through SMS, in a bid to strengthen the security of Twitter users after it faced high profile account hijacking last month.

This process allows Twitter users to add a verified mobile number and a confirmed e-mail address in their account settings and enable the feature from their account settings. Following this, whenever the user enters their name and password to log in to Twitter.com, it asks them to enter a six digit security code which is sent via SMS to the verified mobile number, in order to confirm that the user is actually the account owner.

The two step or the two-factor authentication process is a well known mechanism and is offered by various companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Dropbox, and Facebook among others in various forms.

However, since Twitter is dependent on SMS service for verification, the two step authentication is currently not available to several Twitter users in India, since it currently supports only three carriers – Airtel, Tata Docomo and Reliance. This leaves out a lot of Twitter users on other carriers like Vodafone, Idea, Aircel, among others. We tried it on a Loop mobile, Vodafone, and Idea Cellular connection and when we tried to add setup our number, it gave us an message saying “Sorry, we don’t have a connection to your carrier yet.”

The company notes that it plans to add other carriers in the future, however in the past seven years, Twitter has extended SMS service only to three operators until now. Twitter had inked an exclusive deal with Airtel in 2009 to offer Twitter on SMS service to Airtel subscribers in India, which seems to have been extended to Tata Docomo and Reliance Communications now.

We are a little surprised on why Twitter hasn’t inked deals with other Indian telcos to extend the SMS support to their respective subscribers or else provided an alternative method for Twitter users in India (or elsewhere) to use this service. For instance, Google’s 2-step authentication process is also dependent on SMS but it also offer various other backup options like Google Authenticator mobile app,  send the code through a voice call, allow users to sign in through a backup phone, and offer printable backup codes among others. More backup options will provide a sense of security for users to enable the service, in spite of it making the login process more cumbersome for them. We hope that Twitter rolls out more options for users to receive the access code in the future.

Problems With Shared Accounts

Another problem with Twitter’s 2 step authentication process will be the lack of support for shared accounts. While this will not affect regular Twitter users, it will pose a significant problem to brand accounts and high profile Twitter accounts, where the accounts are usually managed by several people, who would therefore be needing access to the codes to login to the account.

The current SMS verification process supports only a single phone number to send access codes. So, whoever sets up the 2 factor authentication for a brand account with their phone number, will have to keep relaying the access codes to their team members whenever they need to log in the account. This will probably lead to brands shying away from enabling this feature on their accounts, thereby not solving the hacking problem which Twitter is trying to address.

Penguin Books India has recently launched a website targeting young adults between 13 – 21 years of age called Inked which also has an offline imprint division.

The company claims to have over 20,000 registered young adults on Inked website, although we didn’t find any registration process on the site at the time of writing this article, so we are not quite sure on what company means by registered users.

Just a blog targeting Young Adults?

Penguin Book claims that Inked is a creative platform for young adults and focuses on books and writing for young adults as well as topics like music and art.

However, at the time of writing this article, we noticed that the website is just a simple blog which features blog posts across various topics like music festivals, iPhone apps, inspirational ideas, among others. It also features works from various youngsters on the site and also allows them to submit their work for showcase on their website.

What could Penguin Books do with Inked?

This initiative appears to be an attempt by Penguin to tap into younger audience who are tech savvy. While their idea is worth appreciating, we believe their approach could’ve been significantly improved. Firstly, its just a simple blog which is publishing articles across various topics, rather than being a platform for creativity as they claim. While they do offer the option for youngsters to submit their work, there is currently no room for interaction which can make it a creative platform.

At the least, Penguin Books could probably add a forum type of feature that enables youngsters to engage with other youngsters with similar interests. The website would also become more interesting to youngsters if they introduce collaboration features, which allows youngsters across various regions to collaborate on a work which can then be showcased on the Inked website and also can possible be published offline as a book.

On the social media integration as well, there is so much more that can be done with its extensive repository of youth related books. For instance, Pottermore by J.K.Rowling & Sony is a good example of a similar kind of engagement with young readers who seem to come back to the website even after the Harry Potter series is over. Besides unpublished stories, Pottermore also offered games, tasks, and activities around the Harry Potter books.

Gamification done with enough thought could be something that could keep the interest of youngsters and make them come back on a daily basis, however we don’t currently see enough incentives for them to keep coming back to the website.

Reliance Communications has tied up with Loop Mobile allowing both the companies to share their mobile towers to offer a pan-India 2G Intra-circle roaming (ICR) coverage to subscribers of both the networks, reports Times of India. This essentially means that RCOM and Loop Mobile 2G GSM users will not have to pay any extra roaming charges on their networks. In April 2013, RCOM had inked similar deal with Aircel. At that time it had also mentioned that it plans to ink such deals with more operators in the country.

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Directi has partnered with premium domain marketplace Afternic allowing them access to Afternic’s inventory premium domains for sale through BigRock. The company claims that this partnership will allow BigRock customers to access Afternic’s portfolio of six million premium domain names, many of which are eligible for immediate ownership through Afternic’s Fast Transfer network.

Besides this, Directi had also added ‘.IN.NET’ domain to its portfolio. One can pre-order for generic, premium names starting June 18, 2013. The company plans to open registrations from August 1, 2013.

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State owned BSNL will be uploading call details of around 1.50 lakh landline customers on its website, allowing customers to check their call details online or download it, reports Times of India. Besides the call details, customers can also check their billing information and recent tariff plans. To do this, customers will have to create an ID from its self-care portal by providing unique ID from their bill, email ID and password. The company claims that it will take about 48 hours to  verify the details before activating the ID.

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MakeMyTrip has launched a last minute hotel deals initiative on mobile and its website, reports Indiantelevision. The company claims that customers will receive a minimum of 30% discount on these deals. Its mobile app and website will display the last minute hotel deals as the first five hotels in search results for same-day check-in.

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Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) claims to have upgraded its website which can support bookings of more than 4.15 lakh e-tickets daily, reports PTI (via NDTV). Prior to this, IRCTC claims to have handled 3.67 lakhs e-tickets per day. The website can currently handle 2000 tickets per minute and claims that it future it plans to upgrade the website to handle 7200 tickets per minute.

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Jet Airways has launched its mobile application for Windows Phone in association with Nokia which allows users to book tickets, check flight status, manage their JetPrivilege account, among other. It also allows one to check flight updates, notifications, pin the booked ticket on home screen for easy access.

The app is compatible on Windows Phone 7.5, Windows Phone 7.8 and Windows Phone 8 and is available for free download from the Windows Phone App Store.

TLabs incubated VA Tech Ventures Pvt Ltd. has launched its operator agnostic, prepaid, mobile wallet, Happay that syncs with mobile number and SIM card to allow P2P and B2C transactions. This ZipCash enabled mobile wallet does not require a bank account integration. However, users are required to submit KYC documents for transactions above Rs 10,000.

The mobile wallet app is available on Android handsets and can be downloaded from Google Play Store. Once registered on the app, users can load money onto their mobile phone using net banking, debit/credit card or Happay recharge coupons to make payments to different people or for services. Currently, Happay coupons are not available online or offline. Since Happay is a semi-closed wallet, users can cash out their money only into a bank account and not at retail stores.

When we checked their website, we noticed that users can make cash transfers to bank accounts, ask others to pay, make P2P payments, mobile and DTH recharge, and also send invoice for the payment received. We suppose the invoice feature is for businesses. Users can share bills at restaurants and other places and also make group payments using this mobile wallet.

Speaking to Medianama, Anshul Rai, Co-Founder of Happay said that focused on integrating services where cash is the only option, Happay is trying to partner with cab and auto rickshaw aggregators and even ecommerce companies for Cash-on Delivery services. Instead of paying cash, customers can then directly transfer the money from their mobile phones into the ecommerce company’s bank account. Due to requests from vendors, they plan to launch an interface on their app even for businesses, said Rai. Vendors will then be able to get payments from their customers with Happay as their gateway. He further said that they are also working on a feature to allow bank transfers, even on a Sunday and will soon allow users to check their transactions on their website. However, in order to promote mobile payments, users will be not be able to make any payments through their website.

The company monetizes its B2C and B2B services while its P2P services are free. Vendors will be charged a fee of 1-2% of the B2C and B2B transactions, similar to credit card payment services.

mCommerce: The app offers a small mcommerce section through which users can shop for gifts. Happay has so far partnered with Ferns&Petals, 21Fools, Villkart and iExperience for gifting options and with Hope as charity partner. The gifts section has been introduced keeping in mind the group payment option available with the wallet. Rai mentioned that they don’t plan on expanding their mcommerc catalogue further till their B2B interface is launched.

Targeted on college students and young professionals, Happay plans to begin its marketing campaigns by targeting Delhi University students through brand ambassadors and offline events to increase the use of their app beyond their current 109 users. The company is also looking at word of mouth publicity and online ads to market their product.

Other players

Recently, OxiCash, an online wallet service by the payments solutions provider Oxigen Services India, had partnered with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to launch a non-banking money transfer service – OxiCash Money Transfer.

In January 2013, State Bank of India had also launched Mobicash Easy, a prepaid mobile wallet service that allows users to transfer funds and make bill payment, among others. Airtel offers a semi-closed mobile wallet service which allows Airtel customers to pay utility bills, recharge their phones, shop at merchant outlets, make online transactions and make instant money transfers between one Airtel money wallet to another and to bank accounts across the country.

Other players in the prepaid wallet segment include My Mobile Payments, which launched a semi-closed m-wallet in November 2011, Loop Mobile which partnered with ZipCash to offer a mobile payments service, and Nokia Money, which had shut down earlier this year only to be acquired by mobile financial services firm FINO.

The total number of dialup connections in India stood at 25.33 million as of December 31, 2012, up 5.49% from 24.01 million at the end of September 2012, according to the latest numbers from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

At the end of December 2012, the number of broadband subscribers was at 14.98 million, up 2.02% from 14.68 million in September 2012 and registering a 12.22% growth year-on-year (YoY). However, the share of broadband connections in the total number of connections has decreased to 59.15% in December 2012, down from 61.16% in September 2012.

Some observations

• It is worth noting that while MTNL and Bharti Airtel have had insignificant growth between September and December 2012, BSNL and Reliance Communications have recorded an increase in the total number of dialup connections between September and December 2012.
• Only Hathway Cable has registered a decrease in the total number of Internet connections for the quarter ending December 2012.
• BSNL has the highest number of broadband connections for the quarter ending December 2012, with 9.90 million connections. It has a significant margin over other Internet service providers with the nearest being Airtel with 1.39 million connections.
• Reliance Communications is the only ISP among the top 5 ISPs that has more number of narrow band/dialup connections than broadband connections. The dialup/narrow band connections increased to 6.06 million for December 2012, up from 3.39 million connections in September 2012, while its broadband connections has decreased to 0.17 million connections in December 2012, down from 0.19 million connections in September 2012. This also probably contributed to the decline in the broadband connections share in the total number of Internet connections.
• You Broadband & Cable India Pvt Ltd has the fifth highest number of broadband connections in the country apart from having the sixth highest number of dialup connections. It is worth noting that You Broadband which was among the top 5 ISPs with respect to total number of connections at the end of December 2011, has dropped to the sixth place in December 2012.

Market Share of Top ISPs

• Among Internet Service Providers (ISPs), as of December 31, 2012, BSNL has the highest market share of 51.69% with 13.09 millions connections, followed by Reliance Communications which has a market share of 24.63% with 6.24 million connections. MTNL has a market share of 7.68% with 1.94 million connections, while Bharti Airtel owns 5.50% market share with 1.39 million connections and Hathway Cable & Datacom has 1.45% market share with 0.36 million connections.
•  The top 10 ISPs account for 95.42% share of the dialup connections as of December 2012, up from 95.04% in December 2011, while other ISPs account for only 4.58% share of the Internet connections, down from 4.96% in December 2011.
• Although there hasn’t been significant changes in the overall market share owned by the top 10 ISPs, some of the top service providers have seen significant changes. BSNL saw a drop in the market share to 51.69% in December 2012, down from 54. 97% in December 2011. Similarly, MTNL, Airtel and You Broadband have also seen drop in market share in December 2012.
• Reliance Communications is the only operator that saw a rise in its market share to 24.63% in December 2012, up from 15.97% in December 2011.

• Between December 2011 and December 2012, the top 10 ISPs saw an increase of 2.89% in the total number of dialup connections while other ISPs collectively saw only a 0.05% increase, indicating a clear domination of the market by the top 10 ISPs.

Related Developments

Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) has launched a video telephony service on broadband in Delhi and Mumbai in partnership with Ahmedabad based ICT solutions provider Sai Infosystem (India) Limited and can be availed over existing MTNL connections to make high quality video calls through MTNL’s landline or Fibre network.

In January 2013, more than 500 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) had surrendered their ISP licenses to the government and exited the business owing to poor government policies for ISPs. In the same month, TRAI had also announced that ISPs will be penalised for not be Quality of Service parameters. ISPs will be charged Rs 50,000 per parameter in the first instance and Rs 100,000 per parameter for subsequent contraventions.

Update 2: Dentsu has informed (pdf) that as per the terms of the agreement, Webchutney will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Dentsu India by 2017. Dentsu also informed that Webchutney has registered a gross profit of 17.12 crore for the financial year ending March 2013.

Update (May 23): Webchutney CEO Sidharth Rao has said in a blogpost that Dentsu has acquired 80% stake in Webchutney but the company will continue to operate independently in India.

Earlier (May 23): Network18′s venture capital arm Capital18 has inked (pdf) an agreement with Dentsu India group to offload its entire stake in the digital advertising agency and consulting firm Webchutney for an undisclosed amount.

While the financial terms of this agreement were not disclosed, Network18 informed that this divestment was in line with its strategy of monetizing its investments and claimed the investment has generated a return of over 300% to the company. Network18 held 70.06% stake in the company, through its investment arms Capital18 Limited Mauritius which held 49.42% stake and Capital18 Fincap Private Limited which held 20.64% stake.

We’ve been hearing about this development for a while and a report from December 2012 had suggested that Dentsu was in advanced talks to acquired Webchutney and had pegged the deal size to be between Rs 40 crore and Rs 60 crore. Capital18 had neither confirmed or denied this development to Medianama then. For the fiscal 2012, Webchutney had registered a profit of Rs 6.35 crore on total revenue of Rs 21.55 crore.

This is Dentsu’s first acquisition in digital, although it had acquired a 51% stake in Mumbai-based Indian advertising agency, Taproot India, earlier this year. That being said, we have seen a significant number of acqusitions in the past year. French advertising and public relations company Publicis Groupe had acquired Neev technologies last month, which was the group’s fifth acquisition in India in the last two years.

IPG Mediabrands, the media holding group of Interpublic group had acquired the digital marketing agency Interactive Avenues last month while the media and digital communications group Aegis Group plc had acquired a digital performance marketing and search agency Communicate 2 In August 2012. The WPP group had also acquired 51% in Hungama’s digital agency arm, via JWT Singapore in June 2012.

Network18 Divestments: This is the fourth divestment made by Network18 in the last year. In February 2012, Network18 sold online business directories YellowPages.co.in and AskMe to Getit Infoservices. In December 2012, it offloaded 77.5% stake in the financial data and news terminal business NewsWire18 to Samara Capital for Rs 90 crore.

In March 2012, Network18 sold its entire stake in one of its Capital18 investee NetworkPlay to Gruner + Jahr, a media company which is a part of Germany’s Bertelsmann group. Network18 also diluted its stake by 20% in the movie and event ticketing website BookMyShow, when BookMyShow raised Rs 100 crore from Accel Partners in August 2012.

In a bid to attract more SME signups, it looks like Google India has reduced Google Apps pricing in India by 45%. As per the new pricing, businesses can now avail Google Apps plan for as low as Rs 150 per user per month or Rs 1,500 per user per year. Previously, Google Apps in India was priced at Rs 2,700 per user per year or Rs 270 per user per month.

Features: Google Apps offers businesses with web mail, calendars, cloud storage, and video meetings through Google’s consumer products, Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, and Hangouts. Google has integrated these solutions to work together seamlessly and one can access their data or services from mobile platforms including Android, iOS, or BlackBerry. Besides this, it offers 25GB of inbox size, 5GB drive storage, custom email address, unlimited users, business control, and 24*7 customer support.

Why low pricing? Note that Google has updated the Google Apps pricing only in India, where as it continues to offer the same for $5 per user per month elsewhere. This reduction in price is bit surprising considering that Google had ended its free Google Apps offering last year in December. The fact that Google has now reduced the pricing in India indicates that not enough businesses are signing up and that Google wants to focus on Indian SMBs. In December 2012, as a part of its India Get Your Business Online initiative, Google had claimed to have created 2,500 websites for businesses in Delhi’s Chandni Chowk marketplace as of December 2012, and had also set-up a dedicating directory listing page for them at Chandnichowknowonline.in.

Google had announced the ‘India Get Your Business Online‘ initiative, last year. Google intends to build 500,000 websites for Small and Medium businesses by 2014 together with HostGator through its nationwide initiative. It claims to have enabled 150,000 businesses with Web presence across 7,850 cities in India in a span of 13 months.

Other players: Google Apps directly competes with Microsoft Office 365 suite. In August 2012, Microsoft partnered with Airtel to offer Microsoft Office 365 to small businesses. The service is targeted at freelancers, small businesses and even home office owners. It is also worth noting that Microsoft along with Google and Verisign is sponsoring the NASSCOM 10,000 start-up program. Microsoft’s Azure accelerator program also provides start-ups with free cloud services and software development tools. More recently, The All India Council for Technical Education(AICTE) has made Microsoft Office 365 mandatory in all its associated educational institutions, free of charge. As part of the partnership with Microsoft, Malhaar iMarketing Advantage(IMA) will co-ordinate this adoption process, which has to be completed by June 30, 2013.

Zoho also competes with Google Apps. Its services start at $2.5 per user per month or $24 per user per year for a 10GB standard package. It also offer free plan with 5 users.

India’s largest Direct to Home television services operator, Dish TV has added 0.2 million subscribers for the quarter ending March 31, 2013, taking its total net subscribers to 10.7 million subscribers. This is the company’s lowest subscriber addition in the past 23 quarters. Dish TV had last recorded similar additions in the quarter ending June 30, 2007 (Q1-2007) where it had registered (pdf) 0.18 million subscriber additions.

Need To Know

- Subscriber Acquisition Cost (SAC) was at Rs 1,996, down from Rs 2,201 in the previous quarter. The company attributed this decline to the price hikes.

- Average Revenue Per User: The annual average revenue per user (ARPU) for DishTV stood at Rs 157, down from Rs 160 in the previous quarter. Goel attributed this increase to the price hike in the second quarter.

- Subscription revenues for the quarter was at Rs 500.1 crore, up 15.3% year-on-year (YoY).

- Average Churn was at 0.8% per month for the quarter, down from 1% in the previous quarter.

- Dish TV added 5 new HD Channels from April 2013 and claims to offer the highest number of HD channels, offering 25 HD channels and 17 HD services on its platform.

Financials

Dish TV reported an operating revenue of Rs 555.4 crore for the quarter, down from Rs 557.8 crore in the previous quarter, but up 7.6% from Rs 516.44 crore in the same quarter last year. The net loss declined to Rs 43.6 crore for the quarter, down from Rs 49 crore loss in the same quarter last year.

Its EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) for the quarter stood at Rs 120 crore, up 6.5% YoY. The EBITDA margin for the quarter was at 21.6%.

For the financial year ending March 31, 2013 (FY13), Dish TV reported an operating revenue of Rs 2,166.8 crore, up from Rs 1,957.9 crore in the FY12. The net loss declined to Rs 66 crore in FY13, down from Rs 133.1 crore in FY12, while the EBITDA for the fiscal was at Rs 575.9 crore, up 16.8% from Rs 496 crore in FY12. The EBITDA margin for the fiscal was at 26.7%.

Other Highlights

- During the current year, Direct Media Distribution Ventures Private Limited divested 14.74% stake in the company, following which it is no longer the holding company of Dish TV India limited. It currently holds 45.24% stake in Dish TV India Limited.

- The name of Dish TV Singapore was changed to Digital Network Distribution Pte Limited on March 12, 2013. The company entered into a Share purchase agreement with a party for SGD 12,000 (around Rs 5.28 lakh) on March 19, 2013 and the share holding was transferred on April 1, 2013.

- Jawahar Goel, Managing Director, Dish TV said that the DTH industry is still reeling under multiple taxation and in the absence of an enforceable contract for set-top box recovery, it is now looking to move to a virtually zero subsidy model over the medium term.

Download: Press Release | Financials

Updates: Error in Headline has been corrected

Reliance Communications will be using Aadhaar’s online authentication process to activate new connections. The company claims to have tested this solution in a non company owned multi brand small retail outlet and claims to be the first telco in the country to offer Aadhar authentication in both company owned and non company owned multi brand small retail outlet. However its worth noting that Vodafone had launched a pilot program offering Aadhaar based verification  back in October 2012.

RCOM said that it is currently awaiting Department of Telecom (DoT) guidelines for acquisition through Aadhaar. One can just walk into any retailer in the country with their Aadhaar card to get a mobile connection. The customer’s Aadhaar profile details along with the biometric authentication details will be shared by the retailer with UIDAI server for real time authentication. Once authenticated, the customer details can be fetched online from UIDAI server following which their mobile connection will immediately activated by RCOM. Note that this method of authentication will be available at both company owned and non company owned multi brand small retail outlet. The company claims that about 90% of the new SIM cards sold every month come from non company owned multi brand small retail outlets.

Prior to this, users had to submit a photocopy of customers KYC documents and photo to purchase a SIM card. Retailers then had to submit the documents to the company and the SIM would get activated after the company verified the documents. Aadhaar authentication makes the entire process swift and paperless.

Our readers might remember that speaking at the #NAMA conference, Nandan Nilekani, Chairman of UIDAI, had announced the launch of Aadhar E-KYC powered instant prepaid accounts, for which a pilot project was conducted in New Delhi. He had also stated that UIDAI had partnered with 20 banks, and had tied-up with the NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) and Visa for payments powered by Aadhaar enabled E-KYC  (Electronic- Know Your Customer). The Aadhaar powered E-KYC (Electronic- Know Your Customer), utilizes the E-KYC APIs, to allow citizens to avail different services without carrying any physical identification proof. To conduct an E-KYC check, an E-KYC request, along with Aadhaar number and authentication is sent as an input and the name, address, date of birth, gender, and photograph, is received by the agency. (Full video here)

Fake Accounts? While we believe that Aadhaar has the potential to be the single unique identity system for Indian citizens in the future, we think that the project hasn’t reach that stage yet, since we have seen several instances of fake Aadhaar numbers being generated till now. Nilekani had admitted that like every complex deployment, even Aadhaar had faced initial teething problems.

This makes us wonder if telcos should solely trust on the data provided by UIDAI for verification and activation, instead of using its own subscriber verification methods.

Related:
- Five Banks Launch Aadhar Based Saral Money Instant Prepaid Cards With Visa
- Indian Government Launches Aadhaar Enabled Service Delivery

Instant messaging app Plustxt has updated its Android app to add a nifty feature of allowing users to post to Facebook, Twitter and Google+ in various Indic languages supported by the app. Plustxt is currently available as free download on the Google Play Store.

How this integration works is that, one can login to the app through Facebook Connect or the recently updated Google+ Sign-In and tap on the Facebook, Twitter or the Google+ icon at the top of the app homescreen to post updates to the respective social networks. For instance, one can tap on the Facebook icon, to open a new conversion window similar to the conversation windows one sees while sending a message on Plustxt.

One can then choose the transliteration button above the text input box to choose their preferred Indic language among the list of supported languages. Plustxt currently supports eight Indic languages including Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati and Malayalam besides English.

Rather than providing an in-app indic keyboard, the app follows a transliteration approach, wherein it offers indic word predictions in a horizontally scrolling bar, based on the word the user has typed. One can then type in their message, send it and grant requisite permissions to their account, following which the message is posted to the respective social network. We tried it on a Nexus 4 and found that it worked as promised. This implementation reminds us of the chat bot implementation one sees in Google Talk (now Google Hangout) or any other chat client.

Why Is This Important? This feature could come in handy for users who want to post messages to these social networks in their native languages. It could also possibly give Plustxt an advantage over other messaging apps like WhatsApp and WeChat among others. While Imsy offers Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn integration, it doesn’t support Indic language input yet.

Also note that Facebook, Twitter or Google+ doesn’t offer native Indic language input support yet, although one could use third party keyboards like Swiftkey, Swype and Adaptxt on Android which have added support for Indic languages over the last year.

Regional VAS Services: This development also indicates the direction Plustxt is taking in a bid to differentiate itself from other apps. Last month, Plustxt founder Pratyush Prasanna had told Medianama that they intend to monetize the service by licensing Plustxt APIs to others and providing value added services (VAS) in Indian languages. This is particularly interesting because its quite difficult for a content provider to exactly target a specific language audience in the country. Prasanna had claimed that they have already inked partnerships with a Marathi and a Bengali newspaper for this purpose, although he hadn’t disclosed any specific details on it. The company claimed to have 60,000 users as of April 2013.

Related:

- Plustxt Raises Funding From Mumbai Angels & Others; Monetization
- Plustxt To Launch Instant Messaging App With Indic Support, Privacy Controls
- Tachyon Technologies Launches Hindi Facebook Chat App

It looks like Amazon Appstore has finally gone live, about a month after it announced plans to expand the store internationally, (Hat tip Anupam Saxena). Users can download the Amazon App Store app from Amazon Website.

Amazon’s app store brings features like 1-click purchase, one free paid app/game everyday, among others. Users can also test apps on a simulated Android phone using a feature called Test Drive or buy apps from computer and send them to the connect phone or tablet. The Test Drive feature is not available for all mobile handsets but users can test it over PC.

No Localized Pricing? However, what’s surprising is that even though the app store is now available in the country, it does not list paid apps in local currency. Remember that both Apple and Google already offer localized app pricing for developers and consumers in their respective app stores.

While Amazon had started accepting apps/games by Indian developers in April 2013 we couldn’t find any local apps in the store. That said, it doesn’t look like Amazon has any plans to target local apps & games to users. Discovering local apps in the Amazon app store, despite the fact that it has relatively lesser number of apps listed, could be a major issue. Amazon App Store’s direct competitor Google Play Store provides localized top free, top paid, top grossing, and trending apps, which could help Indian developers reach out a larger Indian audience. So if you’re an Indian Android developer, where do you submit your apps for greater audience? Well the answer is submit everywhere.

Payment: Currently users need to connect their Credit Card to purchase paid apps on the store, however, free apps can be downloaded without connecting Credit Card to their account.

With its international expansion, Amazon App Store could possibly be the second largest Android app store in terms of reach. Amazon Appstore will compete with Google’s Play Store and third party app stores such as Getjar.com, Opera App Store, Mobango, Slide Me, among others. More the app stores means better visibility for developers as each app stores would have their own programs to promote apps.

For developers: Last month when it announced that it will expand its app store, it also invited third party app developers in these regions to submit their apps for distribution through Amazon Appstore. It also provides In-App Purchasing (IAP) APIs, Amazon A/B Testing, and GameCircle, Amazon’s gaming experience for Kindle Fire. Just like Google Play store, Amazon will also take a 30% cut from developers on each paid app sale and each in-app transaction, as indicated by the company FAQs. Amazon had also recently launched a Mobile Ads API and its virtual currency called Amazon Coins, for U.S. customers, through which they could purchase apps, games, and in-app items on their Kindle Fire.

The Android Appstore roll-out strengthens the fact that Amazon will be rolling out its Android tablets like Kindle Fire HD in India in the forthcoming future. Remember that Amazon has already tied up with the IT distributor Redington India last month to sell Kindle devices in the country.

With 47.61 lakh subscribers, Maharashtra has the largest Internet (<256 Kbps) and broadband (>=256 Kbps) subscriber base in India as of December 31, 2013 followed by Tamil Nadu with 28.59 lakh subscribers, according to the latest numbers released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

Some observations

• Except Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, all the top 10 states with highest Internet and broadband have higher number of broadband connections compared to Internet connections.
• Among the top 10 states, Maharashtra has the largest number of Internet and broadband base.
• Punjab has the lowest number of Internet connections while West Bengal has the lowest number of broadband connections.

Data Source: TRAI

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Jaipur-based Intap Labs, which runs online language learning platform CultureAlley, has raised an undisclosed amount in funding from KAE Capital, the Mumbai-based early stage investor, reports Mint. The firm has picked up a minority stake in the company, said the report.

Founded in 2012 by Nishant Patni and Pranshu Bhandari, CultureAlley uses live videos for one-on-one student-teacher interactions. Students can learn Punjabi, Spanish, Hindi, Mandarin or French and currently offers free self-study modules to start off. Each live lesson costs a minimum of $15 or $20, depending on the package, and individual lessons last for 60 minutes. The platform enables students to connect with teachers in India and overseas and there is a money-back option if students are not satisfied with their lessons.

KAE Capital, founded by former BlueRun Ventures India head Sasha Mirchandani, raised its debut fund with a $25 million corpus in March last year. The firm is backed by larger venture capital firms Sequoia Capital, SAIF Partners and Omidyar Network, among other investors. It typically plays in the pre-Series A stage, with per deal ticket sizes pegged at between $200,000 and $500,000. Some of the investments it has made since raising the fund include storage software startup CloudByte, career assessment platform My Talent, and apps development platform ShepHertz.

Image credit: CultureAlley

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(c) StartupCentral 2013.