An internet and mobile veteran, Dippak Khurana is the Co-Founder and CEO at Vserv.mobi. He has worked with several leading digital media companies like People Infocom (MAUJ), Yahoo! India, Intercept Technologies, India Today Group Online and Benett Coleman India.

In an exclusive interaction with India Digital Review, Dippak talks about growth of mobile advertising in India, trends, Vserv's key area of focus and company's future plans.

You have an extensive experience in internet and mobile industry. According to you, how is the uptake of mobile advertising in India?

Mobiles are fundamentally altering consumer lifestyle today – it is changing how we live, work and play! The usage of mobile phones has increased to an extent that statistics suggest 45 per cent of Indians are ‘Nomophobic’ that is the fear of being out of mobile phone contact.  As people carry their phones with them all the time, mobile has the exclusive distinction of being prime time all the time.

Currently, the total mobile internet user base is expected to be close to 120-130 million and is slated to rise to 250 – 300 million users in the next 2-3 years. Given this exponential growth rate, the number of mobile internet users is expected to be twice as that of PC internet users. Fuelling this trend is also the rising smart phones consumption. Mary Meeker, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield& Byers (KPCB) released the ’2012 KPCB Internet Trends Year-End Update which stated that India has 44 million smartphone subscribers as of Q4 2012, recording a 52% growth YoY. This has enabled marketers to leverage the unique opportunities and innovation of the medium to showcase immersive, highly personalised ads. 

As mobile internet is becoming mainstream with the rise of smart phones consumption, brands are increasingly showing interest in our differentiated mobile media offerings that offers massive reach, unique ad placement, and impactful ad formats which augurs well for the mobile advertising industry. We are seeing that brands are also increasingly allocating budgets towards high impact mobile advertising. For instance- we have run interesting mobile advertising campaigns for brands such as Halls, Samsung, Axe, Tata Photon with great success.

Currently, the digital advertising market in India was pegged at USD 300 million for FY 2011-12 and mobile is increasingly becoming an essential component of this mix.

What are the current trends seen in the Indian market?

India is a tremendous market for mobile advertising. One of the key reasons for the mobile advertising wave in India is that most consumers are very active mobile internet users. This user base in India is fast approaching the 200 million mark. Around 40 per cent of all mobile internet users in India have mobile as their only internet access point. Their first internet experience is on mobile due to very low PC broadband penetration. In India, this revolution is being driven by the proliferation of Mobile Apps which are driving the Mobile ecosystem, similar to how websites powered desktop internet. Some of the trends that will drive Mobile Advertising and take centre stage in 2013 are:

•  Smartphone Advertising will evolve to Smart Advertising

Advertisers will have to invest time evaluating the mobile habits and behaviour patterns of users to create smart campaigns that will connect with consumers, irrespective of the mobile platform they use rather than focusing only on smartphones.

•  Developers will blend In-App purchases with Ad based revenues in parallel

With an increasing number of app users coming from emerging markets, developers will have to take urgent action to monetize their app user base by plugging into telecom-billing for micro-transactions and use powerful Mobile Advertising solutions.

•  Consumer’s mobile lifestyle will allow Brands to converge advertising, distribution & transactions

In 2013, brands will have the opportunity to leverage the Mobile for all the 4Ps of Marketing. Combined with the micro transaction capability of the mobile, m-coupons will alter the pricing paradigm with hyper-segmented offers. This will eventually lead to a blurring of lines between advertising, distribution and transaction.

Please give an overview of your expansion plans – headcount, centres, product launches etc.

In the last three years, Vserv has expanded its operations significantly and we are continuing to sustain momentum going forward. We have grown from two Co-Founders in Mumbai in January 2010 to a 120+ member global Ad Network with offices in Mumbai, Delhi, London, Singapore, Jakarta, Kuala Lampur, San Francisco &Ho Chi Minh City. By the end of 2013, we plan to have 200+ employees in new offices planned across Southeast Asia, Africa & Latin America. 

Today, we have the unique distinction of being the mobile ad network in the segment that serves advertisements on Apps across both feature phone as well as smart phone platforms.  Our recently releases Annual Growth Report states that in our last financial year (April 2012 to March 2013), the Vserv.mobi network has attained a massive global scale delivering over 256 billion Ad Requests. We have witnessed a staggering 206% YoY growth in global inventory, with Southeast Asia, Africa and Americas being major contributors. The report also suggests a positive attitudinal shift towards the more impactful In-App Ads, which now constitute over 55% of click throughs on the network. App download and consumption has seen a tremendous surge across both smart phones as well as 'smarter feature phone' platforms. Smart phones now contribute to over 38 per cent of Ad inventory, represented by devices such as Apple iPhone5, Apple iPad and the Android powered Samsung Galaxy series.

We are the first Mobile Ad Network in the world to come up with 2 game changing products that have revolutionized mobile advertising and enabled the growth of the entire mobile ecosystem. AppWrapper launched in April 2010, solves the monetization problems of the developer ecosystem and AudiencePro launched in Jan 2013, enables advertisers reach their target audience with highly relevant ads. It enables Telcos to leverage their subscriber relationship data to Ad monetize their users across any site or app. Publishers & Developers experience higher levels of monetization, due to the audience profile layer being enabled on their inventory, without any additional cost.

What has been Vserv's key area of focus and strategy so far in India? What did your strategy centred around?

Our focus is primarily on emerging markets. Originating from India, we understood the nuances of emerging markets and built our products to fulfil the needs of these markets. Also, since most ad networks and app monetization companies were focused on USA and other developed markets, we saw an opportunity to get the first mover advantage & capture the market in developing countries.

Also, with our past experience in game development, we understood the needs and pains of developers, and were best placed to solve them. We wanted to become the developer’s best friend - by constantly creating easy to use, yet powerful tools that simplify his life and improve his App monetization across all platforms- smart phones and feature phones. This approach helped build the relationship with developers and get access to the best global inventory.

The essence of our strategy was to leverage our strengths and build on them.

• Focus on emerging markets

• Developer first approach

Can you elaborate on your current offerings – the AppWrapper technology and AudiencePro?

We have two flagship products: AppWrapper, launched in April 2010, and AudiencePro, launched in January 2013, which has revolutionised the mobile advertising ecosystem.

The AppWrapper is an app monetization platform which provides developers an opportunity to create innovative apps and earn money for their efforts. It offers consumers in emerging markets access to Apps at a price he/she can afford that is Free and finally allows advertisers the opportunity to reach users across mobile platforms in an impactful & engaging ad format.

AudiencePro provides Telecom providers, Advertisers, Publishers and App Developers a great opportunity. It allows Telcos to offer unprecedented audience targeting opportunities to advertisers. We have signed up with Airtel as our first Telco partner in India and plan to roll out the AudiencePro platform with other partners globally in the coming year.

How is your technology different from your competitors’?

Our two technology platforms AppWrapper and AudiencePro are truly game-changers for the stakeholders in the mobile ecosystem.

• AppWrapper requires no coding and enables app monetization in One Click. It offers monetization solution for Apps that combines Ads based monetization with Try&Buy / Subscription services. It natively supports impactful ad formats including full screen billboard, video, forms etc even on basic Feature phones, which is just not possible with other solutions.

• AudiencePro combines the scale of Vserv’s global Mobile Ad Network with credible user data from Telcos, letting advertisers reach their exact target audience across all mobile platforms, via premium ads. It enables Telcos to leverage their subscriber relationship data to Ad monetize their users across any site or app. Publishers and Developers experience higher levels of monetization, due to the audience profile layer being enabled on their inventory, without any additional cost.

You have worked with publishing companies. How ready they are for mobile medium?

Vserv enables mobile media owners from across the world to monetize their content via unique business models and allow them to maximize their earnings via minimum efforts. With the explosive growth in the mobile devices and as more and more readers are reading content during their commute or when they are away from their desktops, it presents a tremendous opportunity for mobile publishers to monetize their content. For example, one of our recent wins has been 9x media, an Indian music television network. We are currently the exclusive app monetization partner for its games and applications on the android platform, powered by the unique AppWrapper. On the other hand, Yahoo as part of beefing up the company’s mobile strategy for becoming a “predominantly mobile company” partnered with us for their inventory across South East Asia including Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

Can you elaborate on Vserv’s tie-up with Midday and Yahoo!

Amongst our latest partners on the publisher front is Mid-Day, a leading daily from Mumbai whose app is now being powered by AppWrapper. This will allow advertisers to reach premium mobile consumers through the newspaper’s app. The AppWrapper natively supports impactful ad formats including full screen billboard, video, forms etc and ensures that the ad appears before or after app usage so the user is in the right frame of mind and therefore receptive to it. Advertisers also get the ability to target the audience on the basis of app category, user behaviour, location and device.

As mentioned before, our partnership with Yahoo! extends across key markets in Southeast Asia including Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. With this partnership, our advertisers will be able to leverage the powerful combination of our network’s superior audience targeting capabilities with Yahoo’s premium inventory. Yahoo’s mobile services now attract about 300 million monthly visitors worldwide and we are excited to partner with Yahoo on their transition journey towards becoming a “predominantly mobile company”.

Tell us about Vserv’s expansion in South East Asia.

The South East Asia market forms a very important segment of our overall growth strategy. We opened our Singapore office in March 2012. In less than a year, we witnessed tremendous growth and have outperformed on our revenue milestones and witnessed a 6X growth in Ad requests. With several marquee advertisers and publishers on board, we are growing our clientele and brand presence rapidly in the region. Some of the premium advertisers on our network include P&G, Unilever, Nestle, Adidas, Aveo, Samsung, Nokia, GM, Telkomsel, Pizza Hut & Axis. We also recently forged a strategic alliance with Yahoo! to monetise it’s premium mobile inventory. This partnership extends across key markets in Southeast Asia including Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

Given our focus, we are also seeing similar traction across emerging markets such as Africa, Latin America, Middle East and Eastern Europe. When we started, a major portion of revenues came from India; today about 65% of our revenues comes from across emerging markets outside of India.

Are you looking to raise a Series B funding soon?

At the moment, our business is growing organically. As any organization continues to expand, capital requirements do arise. When we reach a stage where we feel our organic resources are not enough to fuel our growth, we will look at raising funds.

What is your vision for Vserv in 2013? Can you share any revenue projections?

We are extremely bullish about the potential for growth in the Mobile Advertising space. Our goal is to become the #1 Mobile Ad Network and App Monetization platforms across emerging markets. We are working towards achieving $100 million revenues by 2015.