Industry players feel that though content-based VAS offerings may be dominating the VAS space presently, the scene is all set to change with consumers opting for numerous location-based services.

At a seminar organized by the Internet and Mobile Association of India, most VAS players expressed the feeling that share of location-based VAS services will certainly rise from the present level of 7%.

“The idea with going ahead with such a value added services is that it has the potential to convert the current non-users into a VAS users as these services have a more practical use than services like ringtones and music downloads,” said Tata Teleservices additional vice- president of VAS Products and Solutions Rohit.

“Privacy is the biggest concern for the consumer when he knows that he is being tracked by his service provider. This is where the government has to step in for the entire ecosystem to have a policy,” said Qualcomm manager developer relations Rakesh Godhwani.

“The issue is that while nearly 70% of handsets sold in India are GPRS enabled, there is lack of awareness among the users, which so far has not allowed applications like GPS to grow,” said Motorola director of marketing Lloyd Mathias.