Net4Nuts to foray into overseas market
 
Vinay Umarji & Chitra Unnithan / Mumbai/ Ahmedabad October 09, 2008, 0:48 IST
 

Eyes Middle East, Latin America and East Europe for its ‘MeOnGo’ brand.

After catering to the Indian mobile value added services (MVAS) market for long, Ahmedabad-based Net4Nuts Limited is now exploring similar overseas market for its flagship low-cost application MeOnGo, which enables push email on all internet supporting mobile devices.

A middleware technology company providing various MVAS to top mobile operators like Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular in India, Net4Nuts will be launching its products and services in similar markets like Middle East, Latin America, East Europe, and Africa. However, instead of setting up its own base there, Net4Nuts will look to tie up with local partners for which it has already begun discussions with several players there. In India, the company offers its products and services on B2B basis to operators who then offer them to end users.

"Regions like Middle East, Latin America and East Europe are similar to India in terms of low bandwidth, low expenditure on MVAS and demand for low cost products. Globally, one can access now emails or browse for around $ 1-2 and our products will be priced accordingly. We, therefore, hope to gain a good ground in these markets," said Chirag Patel, founder and chief executive officer of Net4Nuts Limited.

MeOnGo, short for ‘Me on the Go’, allows a user to read emails on a mobile. Access is also available from any POP3 or IMAP4 based mailboxes. The service works over Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and supports versions 1.1 and above for Wireless Markup Language (WML) and Extensible HyperText Markup Language( XHTML). While earlier the product was offered for no charge in India, MeOnGo will be launched in overseas market for a nominal price.

Moreover, the company is also planning to offer some new products and services directly to end users. "We intend to develop the MeOnGo brand and add more innovative and customised services to it and offer it directly to end users. These services will, however, not be a competition to our existing operators," added Patel.

According to the company’ estimates, the number of users across the world having email on their mobile phones would see a jump of atleast 20 times. From 6-8 million users across the world, the number would in likelihood go up to 150 million in the next four years, the company believes.