MUMBAI: Shotformats, a digital entertainment and VAS companies, has launched the world’s first offline application store and India’s first online digital currency – ‘Biscoot Digital Prepaid Wallet’.
Combined together, the two offerings promise to change the way the digital entertainment industry markets its offerings across the rapidly growing smartphone users’ universe acrossth e country.
On the initiatives, Shortformats MD and CEO Niyati Shah said, “As per our research, 95 per cent of mobile users in India are prepaid users of which around 30-40 per cent visit mobile recharge shops at least twice a day for getting recharges. Our distribution chain will comprise of such mobile recharge shops across India for testers. We aim to expand this network to 30,000 retail outlets in one year and sell one million such apps in the next six months. The current ARPUs of a mobile user voice + VAS would be approximately Rs 95 and we are bullish about taking that to Rs 150 in the first year of its launch on Biscoot Offline Store.”
While low cost, big screen and feature-loaded smartphones are now a craze in tier II and tier III cities, the fact remains that majority of the users do not know how to operate such phones beyond basic calls and messages. The shocking surveys reveal that only 15 per cent of the total smartphone users have ever downloaded one or more apps on their mobiles. This situation is tailor-made for offline app stores where a consumer can fully utilise other features of his/her phone without the complexity of data usage and app downloads.
For consumers who prefer consuming data online, the apps are available on the Biscoot website and will be offered with the ‘Biscoot Digital Wallet’.
The offline app store will distribute digital content – movies, music, games and apps across more than 10,000 mobile recharge and telephone accessory stores in the next six months. This will prove to be a legal, good quality and reliable source of content for consumers in comparison to pirated and low quality content available from unreliable sources in the country currently.
The company is focusing on creating utility applications across languages especially for Indian users. The range covers devotional, regional calculators, cookery, dress design apps for women and many more.
Explaining the details further, Shah added, “Shotformats will bring high quality content based offline apps to the nearest shop of the consumer. You can load a movie for Rs 30 or a song for a price as low as Rs two. Games and apps can be purchased for Rs 10. The content applications can be transferred on the consumer’s mobile at the outlet and the consumer can use this content as long as he/she requires, without the internet/data connection on their mobiles. This application or the content cannot be copied to or shared with any other device, thus helping create a stream for content owners to monetize their content better, curb piracy and give the entertainment industry its due share of revenues. ‘The Biscoot Digital Wallet’ on the other hand, facilitates online transactions. The ‘Biscoot Digital Wallet’ will allow the consumers to create a digital wallet called ‘Biscoot Batua’ with their personal login account. These consumers can simply get Biscoot credits in exchange of rupees from retailers and use it for online transactions.”
Disclosing the distribution plans, Shah said that Shotformats will focus on the Indian market and market Indian content for the next few years. “In India, we love our movies and we adore our music. The appetite for Indian content is so huge that we do not need to look elsewhere.”
Offline application stores are being launched in a staggered manner and the initial phase will cover Mumbai, Pune, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Rajkot, Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Surat, Chandigarh, Bhopal, Indore, Rewa, Jabalpur, Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad, Guwahati and Siliguri. The content will be available in eight languages – Hindi (Bollywood), Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bhojpuri, Marathi and Assamese.
This digital wallet is the ultimate solution for those who shy away from using their credit/debit cards for online transactions. This currency will be available at retail mobile recharge and telephone accessory shops at the currency unit of Re 1. The Biscoot currency will be available as scratch cards at denominations of Rs 1000, Rs 500, Rs 100 and Rs 50.
