Thinking Aloud Magazine September 205 X 275mm

HELPING YOU THINK ONLINE
September 2015 · `40 · thinkingaloud.in
Mr. Amarjit
Singh Batra
CEO, OLX.in
“Quality has always
been our USP”
The Porn Ban “More we ban something,

Dilemma Unresolved the more surreptitious
By Na.Vijayashankar it becomes”
(Naavi) – Founder, naavi.org By Amitabh Singhal
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EDITOR SPEAK
Nilotpal
Chakravarti
9/15
VOLUME 11
ISSUE 10 In a jiffy, more than half of the year has gone by without even us realising it. This
year so far has been eventful, as far as the digital industry is concerned. Thus, I
thought this is a good time to take stock of the situation till date – industry
performance wise that is. I believe that the year 2014 was the year of internet
and am of the firm view that internet has reached an inflection point. The
consolidated numbers for FY 2014 affirms the fact that internet in India has now
THE TEAM becoming inclusive, which augurs well for the industry and society at large. Let’s
take a look at some of the key numbers which give rise to my optimism.
The number of Internet users in India reached 302 million by December 2014,
registering a Y-o-Y growth of 32% over FY 2013. The Internet in India took more
Editor-in-chief
than a decade to move from 10 million to 100 million and 3 years from 100 to
Dr. Subho Ray 200 million. However, it took only a year to move from 200 to 300 million users.
Clearly, Internet is main-stream in India today.
On the other hand, mobile Internet in India also witnessed significant growth
Executive Editor rate. Mobile Internet in India is set to growth at an exponential rate. India had
Nilotpal Chakravarti 159 million mobile Internet users as on October 2014. Out of this, 119 million
users were from Urban India and the rest 40 million were from Rural India.
There has been a growth of 45% from October 2013. Mobile Internet users
Printed, Published reached 213 million by June 2015.
& Edited by Also, the impact of internet penetration has seen a huge spurt in Digital
Subhajyoti Ray Commerce. The digital commerce market was valued at INR 81,525 crores by the
end of December 2014, and registered a growth of 53% over 2013. According to
Designed by
IAMAI-IMRB estimates, the industry is estimated to grow further at a rate of
03 Pixels 33% and cross INR one lakh crores by the end of 2015.
On behalf of Digital Advertising has also been witnessing a steady growth. The online
Internet & Mobile advertising market in India was projected to reach INR 3,575 crores by March
Association of India 2015 with a Y-o-Y growth rate of 30%. The online advertising market was pegged
at INR 2,750 crores in March 2014.
Published at
C-36, (Basement) East I strongly think that increase in local language content on the Internet will lead
to a growth of 39% in the current Internet user base. Rural India will be the
of Kailash, New Delhi
primary driver of this growth (75%) while in Urban India, the growth will be 16%.
110 024
The local language user base is growing at 47% Y-o-Y to reach 127 million in June
Printed by 2015. The next set of internet users will come from rural India and the
National Printers availability of local language content on internet will be the key for the growth of
Internet industry in India.
B-56, Naraina
Industrial Area Phase Now, coming back to this issue of your magazine, you will read interview of the
2, New Delhi 110 028 OLX CEO, whose company’s tagline Bech De has gone viral. Also, there are
articles on the issue of Porn Ban, trends on e-commerce and digital payments
For advertising, and other interesting stuff! Do read and give us your feedback.
contact
Sincerely,
nilotpal@iamai.in
Nilotpal Chakravarti
nilotpal@iamai.in
INBOX
K.Sapru
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Thinking Aloud. The topics are pertinent and
New Delhi cover almost all aspects of the digital industry. The magazine is now
becoming a must for all people related to the digital industry.
S. Thapa
I found all the articles and interviews very interesting. The articles were all Thane
argued and present a very neutral point of view. Keep up the good work.
Let me applaud the editorial team for a great issue and design. The views
H. Singh were balanced and I am now more enriched about real issues concerning the
Lucknow digital industry. Thanks for conceptualizing the issue based on some
important topics. Keep up the good work.
J. Nadkarni
The August issue was relevant and it hit my desk at the right time. The articles Mumbai
were very well written, researched and presented a balanced point of view.
N. Saikia Thinking Aloud magazine is gradually becoming my main source of learning

New Delhi about the digital industry. The magazine discusses thread-bare all the
relevant issues and provides a balanced perspective. It is a wonderful read.
THIS ISSUE
Digital Media
• The Porn Ban-Dilemma Unresolved
07-12 • Merging Traditional Marketing &

Social Media Services Hold the Key
to Success!
• More we ban something, the more
surreptitious it becomes
eCommerce
• Mr. Amarjit Singh Batra, CEO,
OLX.in - Interview
• The legal framework around this
13-19
space is still evolving
• Mr. Alokedeep Singh, Head of
e-Commerce Business, Titan -
Interview Mobile
• Building World’s Largest Agent
20-24 Network for Mobile Financial
Services: Case Study
• m-Commerce on the Rise in India
but are Retailers reaching their
Mobile Users?
Digital Payments
• MobiKwik Confidently Staring at
US$5 Billion Transactions
• SBI Enters Digital Payments Space
25-28
with 'SBI Buddy' Launch
• Next in Mobile Payments: The
Uber & Airtel Combination!
• Expanding into the Digital Payments Start-ups/Tech
Space, Flipkart Buys FX Mart
• Indian Start-ups & the Digital Age
29-35 • 10 things every non-coder should

know about coding
• Mr. Vikram Malhi, MD, Expedia Asia -
Interview
• 3 Web-Based Indian Startups Poised
to Grow Big in the Coming Years
Na.Vijayashankar
(Naavi)
Founder, naavi.org
The Porn Ban-Dilemma Unresolved

By Na.Vijayashankar (Naavi) – Founder, naavi.org
There was a media controversy raised recently about the ban imposed by the Government of India on 857
websites supposedly carrying pornographic content. However, the backlash of protests generated by a section
of the society forced the Government to backtrack on its decision and apologetically suggest that they only
wanted sites carrying child pornography content was desired to be banned.
The opponents to the ban were emboldened by a recent observation made by the Supreme Court that an adult
watching porn is a right of personal liberty granted under article 21 of our constitution. Since “Freedom of
Speech” is a touchy subject, Government did not have the gumption to stand by its earlier decision.
In the meantime a section of the public justified porn content based on the age old argument that India is the
home of Kamasutra, there are temple carvings and Khajuraho paintings which are also a depiction of
pornographic content etc. Some went to the extent of publishing a step by step guideline on how to access dark
web and view all banned contents.
Yet another section came up with the argument that it is futile to ban porn stuff on the internet since such ban
cannot be effectively implemented.
I would like to counter all these three arguments and also contend why banning of open access of pornographic
web content is necessary and also how the carnal desires of the adults who want to watch porn stuff can still be
satisfied.
September 2015 | THINKING ALOUD! 07

Firstly, it is only fashionable to speak of “Freedom of Expression” as there is no unlimited freedom in a society.
I challenge the Courts to remove the “Contempt of Court” provision from the statutes before the honourable
courts speak of freedom of speech for everything else. They will not do so since they would contend that this is
the redline that cannot be crossed. In India, terrorists and their sympathizers have freedom of expression to
display ISIS flags and raise pro Pak slogans but an ordinary citizen cannot dare criticising any judicial authority.
Like the right to privacy, right to freedom of expression is always moderated by the counter rights of other
members of the society to be protected against the adverse impact of the general right to privacy and freedom
of expression. Hence the right to watch pornographic content on the Internet can be rightfully banned by the
Government if it is considered essential in the interest of the society.
Apart from the reason to protect the minors from exposure to undesirable content, the need to ban
pornographic content stems from the fact that pornographic content is often used as a carrier of viruses and
Trojans. Pornographic content is therefore a serious information security risk. It is not for nothing that from
times immemorial exploitation of sexual instincts has been a way of corruption and spying. It is a human
weakness which can be and will be exploited by virus writers to drop Trojans.
The availability of pornographic sites is also an incentive for some criminal elements to simply circulate the
pictures of innocent girls to a porn site for revenge. In the past there have been instances of failed lovers
adopting such tactics to stall the marriages of their girlfriends. Just as in the physical world girls are abducted
and sold to brothels, pictures sometimes taken with consent and sometimes without are used to harm the
reputation of girls. The famous case of Dr L Prakash is a case in point.
The case for regulating the porn content is therefore well made out in the interest of securing the society.
The argument that such content is available in temple art etc. is a weak excuse since the media of
communication is different. What the Government attempted to ban is the content which can be accessed by
any person over a mobile and not a content exposed to a person who specifically undertakes the tour of
Khajuraho. The impact that the Khajuraho art or temple art can have on the viewer is different from what the
porn content on the internet can have.
Now let us come to the question of futility of banning. Today there are more viruses on the prowl than
pornographic websites. If we can have a mechanism to identify and stop viruses as a continual exercise, a
similar work can also be done by creating a reference data base of banned websites and routing all internet
requests through them. This will ofcourse be nothing different from the DNS servers which need to be
consulted before any request for a URL can be serviced by an ISP. Hence it is incorrect to say that it is technically
infeasible to monitor the pornographic websites. In the society we keep battling the smoking and drinking
menace where similar challenges are available and are met.
Now coming to the right of those who want to watch porn, I suggest that Government can create a mechanism
where by a person can be granted a “Green Card” to view porn stuff based on his submitting a request and
evidence that he is an adult. Let all members of the society who consider it as their right to freedom and liberty
identify themselves to the ISP’s system and obtain a suitable access permission. Since the permission will be
specific to the person to whom it is granted, any sharing of the password will be considered as illegal and trigger
an offence under Section 66C/66D of ITA 2008.
In summary therefore we can say that there is a reasonable ground to believe that free and unrestricted
availability of pornographic content on the internet is harmful to the society and this section of the society has
its own right to be protected by a Government ban. At the same time there is no need to curb the freedom of
others who may seek and be granted specific “Adult Content Viewing License” which may be linked to the
Aadhar ID or a Bank ID of a person. In order to make it technically easy for implementation of the filtering
mechanism, all adult content should be offered only through special TLD such as .xxx or .xxx.in and provision
of such content under other TLDs should be considered as a violation of the regulation.
Hopefully such a measure will once for all end the dilemma of the Porn Ban.
08 September 2015 | THINKING ALOUD!

Merging Traditional Marketing & Social
Media Services Hold the Key to Success!
By Rohit Pandey – Sr. Content Writer / Social Media Strategist
Here's the heart of the matter: The essence of marketing and Social Media is knowing your audiences and
engaging them in something they love. That's a real key to success.
Most brands and companies are looking to use social media services to target more customers online. The
social media scenario is not the same as it was a decade ago. Nowadays, more and more customers are
interacting with brands through social media. Thus, most companies and brands are taking various measures
to have a strong social media presence on the web. If implemented correctly, merging marketing with social
media can bring remarkable success to your business. Social media marketing or SMM can be defined as an
internet marketing technique that targets different social media networks in order to achieve online marketing
communication and branding goals. The field of Social media marketing mainly covers the platter of activities
involving social sharing of content, videos, and images for marketing and advertising purposes. Different social
media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter can cater to your marketing and advertising needs by merging
traditional techniques along with Social media services. A method oriented platform can serve as a high
efficiency hub for customer engagement activities. Social media should not be considered as an only channel
for marketing initiatives.
Twitter has evolved drastically over the years and it is not a second fiddle to Facebook in any ways. The agencies
that provide social media services are now looking forward to combine product promotion, content marketing
and customer interaction to make it a one-stop customer service solution by providing quick response to
customer queries, concerns and product information.
One of the best ways to enhance results and expand the reach of your brand is by integrating Email and social
media. The agencies that specialize in providing social media services are now making it a point to include the
icons of Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter in the email formats and templates. This makes it easy for the potential
customers to find your brand on these platforms. Are you missing out on these? The new age social media
platforms are all about interacting and sharing. A simple process of adding social sharing buttons to the
e-mailers can help them share it with their friends and followers with a simple click. This can also help with
conversion of social followers to email contacts. The next important point is the Hashtag. Instead of being just
a segregation tool, Hashtags have paved a new way of interaction and sharing recently. Previously hashtags
were limited to just Twitter, however, it’s not the same case now. Hashtags are now used on Facebook,
Instagram, Pinterest, blogs and much more. Various media agencies are now using dedicated teams to cater to
this practice as it serves as a filtering mechanism to help customers identify themselves as per topic of shared
interest. Most companies are now incorporating hashtags in their online and offline campaigns to get the
message delivered to the customers and a larger audience without the need of enhanced marketing tactics.
Many would debate that the traditional marketing is still better than the Social Media Marketing. However, what
would be better than merging the best of the both worlds to derive success!

PORN
“More we ban something,
the more surreptitious it becomes”
By Amitabh Singhal
Amitabh Singhal, runs a consulting outfit and as a Founder & Former President – ISP Association of India &
Founder, Former CEO & Board Member – Nixi, helped initiate and shape the Internet policies for a long time. He is
currently also a Board Member of Public Interest Registry Governing Council Member of Digital Empowerment
Foundation & Member of Working Group on Internet Proliferation & Governance, DeiTY.
When asked to write on the subject, I had a certain sense of Déjà vu. About 8 years ago, I had participated in a live TV
show, around ‘midnight’, which lasted for a good 3 hours. It was the same subject of pornography on the Internet.
Highlight was the audience call in, some putting forth their views and others seeking answers to questions.
I remember noticing that the very vehement ones were those opposed to it and their grouse was the fact that
easy accessibility of porn was leading to moral degradation of the society at large. They were the ones who felt
it was morally unacceptable and even chastised the TV Channel for helping to promote availability of porn, by
airing such programs as ours and on top of it running names of pornographic websites in the backdrop of the
program. Then there were the concerned ones wanting to know from the learned psychiatrist on our panel,
how it effects their minds and if there was a way to dissuade them from accessing/watching porn. In addition
there were the usual queries on whether it was legal/illegal to watch porn, etc. The answer from another fellow
panelist, that while it was illegal to publish and distribute and showing it in a public place, it was perfectly alright
to ‘watch’ it in the privacy of his /her room, brought forth a stream of vitriol from someone in the audience on
how could we all be so blatant so as to suggest that pornography can be enjoyed by anyone even privately. The
fellow panelist had a hard time defending his statement.
The point of recounting the above was my thought that; has anything changed from the situation above from then
to now about how we react to Online Pornography. To my mind, nothing really has changed as far as the extreme
reactions the subject evokes amongst us, and in the foreseeable future too nothing probably will. The reasons why I
say this is that are many and I think we need to create a more informed and objective view on the matter:
First, we have to recognize the primary fact that interest in sex is built into every living thing’s DNA. In any form,
it will always generate interest, curiosity, fear, like, dislike and excitement; name it and all forms of human
emotions and expressions are deeply attached to the subject.
Secondly, one has to learn something from history. Expression or depiction of nudity and anything sexual in
many forms is as old as mankind itself. Whether in the form of drawings, paintings, writings, storytelling, music,
poetry, sculptures, engravings, pictures, films, name a medium of communication throughout history and sex
finds itself pretty prominently there. From Paleolithic cave paintings onwards, all civilizations have been replete
with sexual depictions in whatever form and manner they could use. My thinking is that during the older
civilizations production of erotica was pretty public and possibly a widely acceptable occurrence.
Third, through the course of history, with the advent of new media (eg Printing press, etc.) it became easier to

produce larger quantities of the depictions of nudity and sex. I am not certain but pretty sure that even then,
there were sections of society who must have reviled the growing depiction of erotica, but there were still many
who accepted it. Instances of literature, paintings, etc. being burned down have been written about in many a
historical account pointing to the conflict regarding the subject.
However, from a more recent perspective, any debate on this matter ends up wily nily making a reference to
Khajuraho, with one side stating that it justifies the availability of pornography (we were always doing it and
publicly so what’s the big deal now, they say) and the other side says that this is a subtext of religion, spirituality
and culture and hence an acceptable art form which cannot be equated to porn. (This is where the distinction
between erotica and porn springs up).
To my mind they could be both right, but they are also wrong. First, if erotica depicts nudity and sexual acts, so
does porn. Because sex is sculpted and painted or engraved, it has over the years gained acceptance as a
‘category of art’. However, using a still or motion film to print or show sex is generally more associated with the
term ‘porn’ or pornography. I read that though the term ‘pornography’ itself is of ancient Greek origin, it came
to be associated with depiction of sex in a derogatory manner, during the Victorian era. I guess it is a function
of time in history and context of cultural, religious, social norms of the day which seem to determine on how the
society in it’s then current state views depiction of sex as erotica (as in art form) or as pornography (defined by
some nowadays as lascivious content, leading to developing a prurient interest, or aimed at arousal, etc. etc.)
and hence to be reviled. Does Kamasutra or the intricate erotic miniatures from our various schools of paintings
not arouse, I wonder?
Anyhow, with the advent of photography in the early 1800’s, it became possible for erotica to be mass
produced, with motion picture photography, erotica in motion (I am sure the first kissing must have been
termed porn and censured then – much like what happened to ‘literary’ works like Lady Chatterley’s lover) and
in the 1970’s videotapes became available, making it literally a household product. Technological evolution has
therefore always abated the proliferation of erotica or porn, depending on the context one sees it from.
Advent of Internet and lately the ubiquitous mobile with a camera has changed the course of erotica/porn even
more, in the last 10 to 20 years or so. Every individual with a mobile and online access can be a photographer,
producer, publisher, actor, etc. The result is there for all to see. Anyone and everyone now has the power on
his/her fingertip to create any amount of explicit material and put it out there on the Net.
Pornography and email are generally considered the two most popular applications, which have made Internet
what it is; ubiquitous. Statistics on the extent of porn on the Internet is so varied that it befuddles ones senses.
Most sites will throw up data to show that anywhere from 35% to 70% of the internet is made up of porn and
that nearly 47% or more searches and downloads on the internet are for porn. However, a few more
respectable sources like Forbes and BBC that I looked up tend to disbelieve the huge figures and state that the
extent of porn online is highly exaggerated. Both of them tend towards believing amongst other data, the
research by the team of Dr. Ogi Ogas and his co-author Sai Gaddam, according to whom "14% of searches and
4% of websites are devoted to sex, (but even) then are very significant numbers, when you stop to ponder it."
Even this would translate into millions and millions of pages of explicit material online.
So, the next question is; it possible to stem the flow or contain it, no matter how much of it is out there?
One basic fundamental of Internet that everyone must remember is that, this medium of communication was
designed by default to withstand any break or disruption. What it means is that if anyone tried to break or disrupt
any part of communication pipe (medium/transport) and or the traffic (content/data), these would be easily
re-routed and become available from another part of the pipelines. Forget breaking it, even disruption or making
some content unavailable can at best be a temporary measure. It will spring up from some other place in the pipe.
So, finally to get to the question of whether it is all right for the sections of public to demand or for the
government to try impose a ban on explicit adult material online?
I feel, again that there is no absolutely easy answer here. It is both a yes and no.
In principle I would say ‘No ban’ because in the larger context, as I explained throughout, availability of sexual

material no matter how we categorize it will always be made and distributed and be available for consumption.
There is always a demand and there will always be a supply. The more we ban something, the more
surreptitious it becomes and hence even more difficult to control. And technically Indian government and the
industry together cannot really go beyond ‘blocking’ (we don’t have the wherewithal and control over the
Internet to kill undesirable content from its source (called takedown).
Secondly, of course, there is the issue of individual liberties and freedom of speech and expression guaranteed
by our Constitution, which should not be infringed upon by the government and the test for imposition of
reasonable restrictions on such freedoms, should be really very stringent but cannot certainly include curbing
an adults freedom to watch content of his/her choice (whether we call it erotica or porn or whatever).
But, here’s the rub too. Even as libertarian, who believes in the individuals freedom of choice, I do believe that
except for content, which is produced and consumed by consenting adults, there is still an enormous amount
of depictions of behavior, which really is deviant, violent, forced, exploitative, coercive, torturous, bestiality and
such involving abuse of women and children and other vulnerable people and the like. These are definitely and
unambiguously outright criminal acts or a result of some criminality or the other, which cannot have any room
for social, cultural or legal justification. These need to be targeted for takedowns constantly, even if it looks like
a losing battle. It is a difficult terrain to navigate given it’s vastness but it must be done.
My suggestion is that the government needs to relook at the way it looks at and goes about trying to ban or
block ‘adult content’. As I said earlier, there is erotica and porn and then there is really bad porn involving abuse
of children and women, which constitutes serious criminality and should not be tolerated and measures have
to be adopted to contain it’s spread. The government alone cannot curb this type of content. Here, the network
(telecoms and ISP industry), other interested corporates and even individuals have a big role to play.
At the network level, there must be some joint initiatives with dedicated teams comprising technical, legal &
operational expertise and financial resources to constantly monitor the Internet, identify and create a database
of sites and pages containing criminal sexual content and build mechanisms to track the source of such content
and use the necessary means, including possible international co-operation to bring that content down as far
as it can be possible. This would require a dedicated setup working 24x7x365 and could possibly be a
sufficiently empowered Voluntary organization. This setup could be with a public interface where the public can
point and share information on the criminal content. This set up would be quite different from the currently
opaque and largely unknown mechanism used by and within the government alone to identify sites to ‘block
and ban’, which as I maintain, is really impractical and does nothing to curb the really bad stuff.
At the individual level, however, every parent has the right to be concerned about the exposure and access that
a child has to the adult explicit content. I think that while it is inevitable that children in this day and age will have
an earlier exposure, there can be proactive measures that can be taken by concerned parents, which can
include ‘educating’ the child about bad behavior on the Internet, much like it’s done in the real world. Then there
are monitoring, and filtering software, which can be installed to ensure that parents can check upon the child’s
online activities and even block a lot of it. This obviously presupposes that even the parents are aware and
educated enough and that’s something that the government and industry can address together through
relevant capacity building measures.
Hence, to conclude; what we learn from all of the above is that pornography is a reality, always has been. We
have to live with it and emerging technologies will only keep making it more ubiquitous than ever before. As
long as there is demand there will be supply. For the government to act as a moral police is also not acceptable,
and the measures it currently adopts to try ban or block certain sites is really futile and a waste. There are
millions of sites out there and more keep coming up and the nature of Internet ensures that the tide cannot be
stemmed. What can be done, however, is to identify, content which is seriously criminal in nature and find ways
to take them down. It would be a cat and mouse game but it needs to be played out jointly by the government,
the industry, society at large and even individuals. An objective understanding on the subject has be to
developed and proper measures such as monitoring and filtering tools can be easily used to ensure that
children’s exposure is limited to an extent.
The above are author’s personal views.

Amarjit
Singh Batra
CEO, OLX.in
“Quality has always been our USP”

- Amarjit Singh Batra
In an exclusive interview to Thinking Aloud, Mr. Amarjit Singh Batra, CEO, OLX.in talks about how OLX has been able
to create a niche in the C2C market and why people prefer OLX as their preferred destination for buying and selling.
TA: Localization and Quality are a couple of pivotal things in terms of Classifieds. What has worked in
favor of OLX so far?
ASB: What has worked most for OLX is fulfilling our brand promise to our users by providing them with
successful selling and buying experiences day in and day out. People are able to sell within hours, sometimes
even minutes on OLX. The kind of word-of-mouth this has generated for us is stupendous. This has enabled us
to stand for the category itself today. OLX and selling have become synonymous, and for us there can be no
greater indicator of success than this.
Relentless focus on consumer-to-consumer (C2C) classifieds was a difficult path to take, but has helped
establish OLX as the market leader. Quality has always been our USP. This is why 100 percent of the Ad listing
content on OLX is user-generated, and we neither call users to use OLX nor post Ads on their behalf.
Although, we are present in 40 countries, in India, we have built OLX as a local brand, and crafted a local tagline
- ‘Bech De’. We took localization a step further when we became the first company in our space to create

customized regional communication for different parts of the country. So instead of ‘Bech De’ we have
‘Vithudunga’ in Tamil, ‘Ameyandi’ in Telugu, and ‘Maari Bidi’ in Kannada.
TA: Mobile is an ideal way to make sure that every listing is getting response in a quicker time. Do you
think multilingual support along with new innovation for the mobile platform held the key to success?
ASB: Mobile gives ease of access, but it is the simplicity of the platform that increases its usage and popularity.
The new-to-net population is consuming Internet for the first time on the mobile, and this makes it imperative
to have an uncomplicated platform. This is the reason, more than anything else, we have worked hard on
building a user-friendly App. To us, it does not make sense to keep introducing new features, if they are not
catering to existing user needs. Today, we are the number one classifieds App in the country (on Google
Playstore) with 85 percent of our traffic coming from mobile. We are a platform built on user-generated content
(UGC). Our research in this space has shown that UGC content hasn’t picked up in a big way for mobile Apps yet,
especially for the classifieds. We have our platform available in different languages, and when the time is ripe,
we will introduce multilingual content for the App as well.
TA: Can you share any new product innovations in the pipeline that are poised to conquer the US$31
billion Indian Classifieds Market?
ASB: For our users, OLX in itself is a product innovation. A few years ago selling and buying used household
items was unheard of; that two individuals could carry out a transaction without help from middlemen was
nearly impossible. Facilitating this transaction between individual buyers and sellers is our biggest innovation.
Innovation has to be tied to market needs. The timing needs to be right. This is why, keeping in mind our
leadership in the used car space, earlier this year OLX took the lead in offering sellers and buyers of used cars
the benefit of conducting reliable and responsible transactions by tying up with a leading auto inspection
platform. Soon after that we also introduced a chat feature, which helps buyers connect instantly with the
sellers of products they are interested in buying.
Going forward too, we will continue to introduce timely innovations that enhance the C2C experience, and
benefit the industry for the long term.
TA: It’s been said that used mobile phones and cars are selling like hot cakes in the C2C Market. What
are the other products that are garnering maximum postings?
ASB: Used mobile phones and cars and motorcycles certainly take up a large chunk of the transactions and
listings as both are extremely aspirational categories. Everyone has a mobile phone these days and this is
fastest moving category on OLX. Cars generate the maximum traffic for OLX, making us the biggest marketplace
for used cars in the country. But OLX is also the largest marketplace in India for used household items,
furniture, baby products, home electronics, sports equipment, musical instruments and antiques and
collectibles. The OLX Consumer Research on Used Goods and Selling Trends (CRUST) survey has shown that
getting the brand of one’s preference at an affordable price is among the top triggers for buying used goods.
Buying and selling of used microwaves, air conditioners, strollers, sofas, and the likes was unheard of a few
years ago. OLX has made this possible for the first time. One of the key benefits of using OLX is that it allows
middlemen-free transactions, and this has prompted people to trade things they didn’t even imagine buying
and selling until recently.
TA: Recently, Quikr raised $150 million & they are looking to go App only. What has been the recent
developments on the part of OLX to sync in tandem with the competitors?
ASB: A Morgan Stanley Report dated January 22, 2015, called ‘Winning India’ has valued OLX India at US$3.8
billion. This is about 4 times the valuation of others in our space. But we don’t believe in valuation as being
either the only or the most formidable indicator of competitive success. We have built the largest marketplace
for used goods in India, and have 70 percent unique content on our platform, which implies that 70 percent of
the content is exclusively available on OLX and no other platform. We have 85 percent market share of the
consumer-to-consumer (C2C) trade in the country, and we have reached this stage only because we decided to
take the difficult path. At a time when everyone was focussing on vertical classifieds, and there were no
successful examples of horizontal online classifieds in India, we decided to focus primarily on C2C. As creators
and builders of C2C classifieds in India, we eliminated competition a long time ago. We are fortunate that we are

backed by a strategic partner like Naspers. We have a strong playbook to refer to, and are doing the right things
to grow the business.
TA: Lastly, can you provide some numbers that indicate OLX has made it big in the online classified space?
ASB: OLX gets more than 2.5 billion page-views a month (August 2015). Our brand awareness is more than five
times that of our closest competition (as of August 9th-15th, 2015). In cars, which is our biggest category from
the perspective of traffic, we have a brand awareness that is more than six times anyone else in the industry (as
of August 9th-15th, 2015). OLX is also the only classifieds player to be among the top ten searched terms in India
for both 2013 and 2014 according to Google Zeitgeist, coming in at number 8 in the latter year. An independent
research-based report by leading global financial firm Morgan Stanley published on February 5th, 2015 states
that, “OLX is a market leader within C2C eCommerce by a wide margin.” The report titled ‘India Internet and
eCommerce Asia Insight: Decoding What India Does on the Internet’ says that the majority of users on OLX have
had an “excellent” user experience. (Report attached).
OLX has also won prestigious industry awards and accolades such as Pitch Top 50 Brands in India, 2014 and
2015, the most fifth trusted online brand by Trust Research Advisory’s Brand Trust Report 2014 and 2015, #2
ecommerce website in India by Surewaves Buzziest Brands 2014, and two Effie awards in 2015, and two Abby
awards in 2015 for its different campaigns.
Google Trends Graph 1: Classifieds industry comparison Aug 2015

(Past 1 Year, All Categories) More than 5 times bigger
Google Trends Graph 2: Industry comparison in used cars category Aug 2015
(Past 1 year, Auto and Vehicles Category) More than 6 times bigger at least

Rishit Dalal
Co-Founder & CEO,
Centralmart.in
“The legal framework around this

space is still evolving”
By Rishit Dalal, Co-Founder & CEO of Centralmart.in
The e-commerce industry in India is less than a decade old, and is witnessing frenetic growth. The legal
framework around this space is still evolving and rapid growth comes with its own challenges. Large horizontal
e-commerce players have adopted the “marketplace” model which allows them to get foreign investors
on-board and scale fast. In a marketplace model, the seller could be anyone right from a small mom and pop
store to a large organized retailer. In most cases, the sellers post their products (with support from the
e-commerce firm), and start selling online. New product categories are welcome in the race to become the
‘largest online store’ in the country.
The large horizontal e-commerce players such as Flipkart.com, Amazon.in, Snapdeal.com and Paytm.com are
adding products by the second, there is always a probability of some problems arising due to oversight and lack
of clear regulations. First, there was the issue of manufacturers protesting against deep discounting of their
products online which was hurting their traditional, brick and mortar distribution channels. More recently, FIRs
were filed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) against Snapdeal.com and Shopclues.com for selling
prescription drugs online. An FIR was also filed in Madhya Pradesh against Paytm.com for some scam in which
the fraudsters used the Paytm Mobile Wallet for monetary transactions. Punjab also banned sale of e-cigarettes
online and caught online players unaware. The e-commerce players accused have been prompt to take
corrective action and de-list the products in question. Such instances also make organizations more alert about
loopholes in their processes, which could create obstacles for the business.

Our venture - Centralmart.in - is amongst the first e-commerce start-ups in the home improvement and
solutions space in India. As a one-stop-shop for home solutions, we sell everything right from building
materials, hardware, lighting and bathroom products and will soon be launching furniture, kitchens, furnishings
and decor as well. What we offer is a wide breadth of brands and products in every category we sell, strong
technical content, specialized domain knowledge and a customer experience which is unique to this industry.
We are also developing technology which would soon transform the way customers do their home interiors.
Presently, online shopping for building and home improvement products in India is at a nascent stage, mainly
because of the complexities of the trade from the supply side. This massive $50 billion+ industry is completely
fragmented and unorganized with not a single, large-scale player having a national presence in spite of India
being one of the biggest countries in the world by number of households. The sellers are mainly small
businesses or mom and pop, brick and mortar stores with a limited product selection and restricted geographic
reach. Most sellers do not have IT systems in place nor the motivation to sell online. Also, most building
products do not have printed MRPs and there is no defined pricing structure. A customer will get the same
product in three stores at three different prices. Margins are typically thin, and products are technical. There is
poor after-sales support and high unprofessionalism in the industry. Hence, when the supply side is
complicated, getting sellers online and exploiting demand becomes a challenge.
Centralmart.in has worked hard to find creative solutions and overcome these challenges to offer value and a
superior experience to our customers. To overcome the challenge of unorganized sellers resisting to coming
online, we had to build a managed marketplace in which entire product cataloguing, photos, content
management, pricing, inventory management and updates are done by our in-house team. We have enabled
our sellers implement basic IT systems for receiving and processing our orders. We will gradually integrate
them on our platform to have seamless inventory management and order processing.
We have also worked on building an efficient supply chain, which enables us sell at ‘transparent, everyday low
prices’ which are competitive relative to brick and mortar retailers, but not deep discounted. This ensures that
the manufacturers’ traditional distribution channels are not hurt, and Centralmart.in becomes a
complementary sales channel for them while creating value for customers.
The managed marketplace model also enables us curate our vendors, and sell only original products with
warranty. It is a controlled environment and Centralmart.in takes full responsibility for products it sells, offering
single-point after-sales support too in case anything goes wrong. This has eliminated the risk of fake products
being sold on our website, and created trust in our customers.
If the customer procures through brick and mortar channels, he has to visit multiple sellers to buy multiple
products, negotiate prices all the time, coordinate and track each order manually and undertake a lot of hassle
in the process. Centralmart.in simplifies home improvement with a wide product selection, transparency in
prices, centralized procurement and order tracking, budget management and of course outstanding
convenience - saving significant time, money and resources for the customer. We have also created
tremendous efficiencies for interior designers who have started outsourcing their procurement to us as a
one-stop-shop. It frees up their time, reduces their costs and allows them to focus on business development.
Logistics of bulky and fragile products is another challenge faced by all e-commerce players, and Centralmart.in
is not immune to it. Through our third party logistics partners, we have created an economical distribution
system and are continuously working to create more efficiency in this area.
Hence, Centralmart.in has worked around challenges and now sells 50,000+ products from 150+ brands with
more than 10 brands being added weekly. We will be launching furniture, kitchen, furnishings and décor
categories soon to offer an even bigger choice of quality products to our customers for their home. In the West,
the building and home improvement products space has very large, multi-billion dollar corporations such as
Home Depot and Lowes (USA) and B&Q (UK). There are also highly successful online-only players such as
Build.com, Builddirect.com and recently Houzz.com with multi-billion dollar valuations. Knowledge and
technology transfer from such established, successful players from the West will definitely help Indian
e-commerce players tackle challenges more effectively and scale up faster.

Alokedeep Singh
Head of e-Commerce
Business, Titan
India is not yet ready for the 'Mobile App Only'

option - Alokedeep Singh
In an exclusive interview to Thinking Aloud, Mr. Alokedeep Singh, Head of e-Commerce Business, Titan, talks at
length about the significance & rise of e-Tailing and the challenges faced by the e-Commerce sector today.
The customer is agnostic to the terminologies of offline and online. Both brick and mortar & online business will
co-exist. Only, the boundaries will become thinner – Alokedeep Singh, Head of E-commerce Business, Titan
TA: Internet-habituated & aspirational consumer base has been significant in the rise of eTailing.
According to you, what are the other factors driving the growth?
AS: I strongly believe that the whole investment process in the space has been very substantial. Obviously, the
internet penetration and internet consumption base have grown over the years. But, these are not the only two
significant areas. The large investment that has been provided to the startups has also played a significant role
in the rise of e-Tailing. It has enabled the startups to successfully deliver large sized marketing campaigns.
These developments have provided the new entrants with an opportunity to provide the consumers with a new
way of shopping online. A customer does not shop online only for the convenience part of it. The factors that
instigate a customer to shop online includes price, discounts, freebies and a lot more. I would say that other
than the two factors that you have mentioned, the whole buildup on the startup ecosystem & the investment
pouring in are definitely driving the growth in the sector.
TA: Order fulfillment and logistics are some of the challenges faced by the e-tailers. What are the
other challenges?
AS: Rather than challenges, I would say that the process has become category-driven. Nowadays, there are a lot

of categories like electronics, mobile, home products etc. that pose various challenges to the e-tailers. The
customer does not buy everything online. The offline shopping space still holds a key to the customer. So, I
would not say that it is a challenge. However, it will take some time for the customers being complete online
buyers across a variety of products. And, the other major challenge I feel is the at the payments part of the
process. Payment sector should come up with more holistic solutions. 50 to 55 percent of the e-commerce &
e-Tailing business in India is driven by Cash on Delivery. Another challenge is that the acceptance apart from
convenience of e-commerce is due to the pricing and discounts that are being offered. These discounts are
something that may not remain forever. This poses as a challenge because every e-tailer today is burning cash.
Be it on the Cash on Delivery purpose or the logistic end. These challenges must be addressed if the
e-commerce & e-Tailing segment wants to be scalable and profitable in the future.
TA: Would brick and mortar businesses cease to exist in the near future?
AS: I strongly believe that both of the sectors will exist to help each other co-exist in the future. Obviously,
e-Tailing is not going anywhere; it is a way of life for the people now. A common ground between both the
segments will continue to exist as the customers don't look at the online & offline shopping as e-tailers &
retailers do. The customer is agnostic to the terminologies of offline and online. Both the segments will co-exist.
Only, the boundaries will become thinner.
TA: What steps are you looking to take in terms of supporting consumer shopping across multiple
devices?
AS: One thing that we have always maintained is that the best way to success is being where the customer is.
The whole shift that is taking place with customers moving towards various devices like mobile, tablets and
much more, we intend to provide the customers with a similar shopping experience across multiple platforms.
We are continuously trying to create a sync between platforms to provide a proper assortment to the
customers. This is something that we are looking forward to extending & expanding in the coming months. And,
devices will be an integral part of the process.
TA: Essential buying has been around for a while. How big a role does impulsive buying play for the
growth of e-Tailing in India?
AS: Essential buying is getting a bit older with each passing day. If you look at the customer target audience of
the e-Tailing customers in India, 75 to 80 percent of the customers are in an age group of below 34. The rise in
the disposable income and aspirations of the new-age customers have paved a way for impulsive buying in the
market. The surge in e-Tailing marketing and spending by the e-Tailing portals on TV ads & OOH advertising also
denote that impulsive buying plays a big role in the growth of the sector. The idea is to catch the pulse of the
customer with providing a proposition so exciting, that the customer reaches out to his/her phone and goes on
to order the product. People are not shying away to buy products by just acting on the Ads they see or by
following their impulse with help of so many options in the market like EMIs, Loans, Finance and much more.
TA: Many companies are adapting the 'App Only' way. Does this leave the future of e-Commerce
portals in a lurch?
AS: If you take a look at the numbers, obviously, mobile is one of the most profitable platforms available to the
e-tailers & the retailers. Desktop has just bagged the 1/4th of the total base as compared to the huge results
generated via the mobile platform. On the other hand, you can't completely rely on the customers to arrive
from Mobile apps. One needs to have a look at various things. 1) You are asking the customer to download an
app & you are restricting him/her to a channel. Rather than building a convenient channel for everyone, you are
indirectly telling the customer that he needs a smartphone to be your customer. 2) I feel that the market is not
yet ready to adapt the app only process. If you take a look at the smartphone penetration in India, it has not
passed the 40 percent hurdle. And, not many devices are capable of supporting the multiple apps. So, in the
way you are losing out on a good measure of customers out while targeting the segmented customers. In
simple words, you loss turns out to be someone else's gain. As a customer, I would not always want to shop on
my mobile. Maybe, I want to view products and its minute details on a larger screen! You cannot restrict your
customers in such a way wherein eTailing is still expanding its horizons. India is not yet ready for the 'Mobile
App Only' option. One must rather think 'mobile first' than 'mobile only.'

Building World’s Largest Agent Network
for Mobile Financial Services: Case Study
Adarsh Credit: A trusted brand for rural members
Adarsh Credit Co-Operative Society (“Adarsh Credit”) started its operations in 1999 as a
co-operative society primarily serving farmers in Rajasthan, India. Adarsh is among
India’s leading credit co-operative societies in terms of branch network, agent
strength and deposit base. It currently operates in 20 states & 4 union territories
with over 140,000 agents and 800+ branches.
Adarsh Credit provides savings products to cater to the needs of its members
including fixed deposit, recurring deposit and daily deposit products. To provide
services to its members Adarsh has created a network of agents to serve its members at
their door step. The agents travel throughout rural, semi-urban and urban areas to meet with
members and collect deposits. The rural environment creates unique travel challenges, often roaming long
distances, which means agents often cannot return to the office or branch every day. Many agents at Adarsh
Credit are in the field on a full time basis, and are constantly in the field for collections, opening new deposit
accounts and servicing members daily.
Previously, the agents had two main means of handling deposit collection:
1. Point-of-sale (POS) machine. Agents lug around a heavy POS device with them and input the deposit
transactions in offline mode (given lack of mobile data/communication channel). When they return to the office,
they transfer the data from the POS to the Adarsh Credit Core Transaction System (CTS).
2. Pen and paper. Agents write down the client information and deposit amount in a paper book. When they
return to the office, the transaction details are entered manually into Adarsh Credit’s systems.
Both approaches require the agents to return from the field daily to update Adarsh Credit’s systems, often
manually. For Adarsh Credit’s members, this creates a significant and worrisome delay before receiving an SMS
confirmation of deposit.
The mobile revolution: rolling out at scale

In order to overcome the challenges faced by agents using either pen and paper, or carrying unwieldy POS
machines - with all transactions only recorded at the end of the day at a branch offices - Adarsh Credit decided
to roll out an easy to use mobile solution to provide their agents simple and powerful tools to serve members
and transact in real-time-no matter where they are, or how rural their location.
Adarsh Credit started rolling out the new mobile solution powered by Mistral Mobile in 2014. The solution
enables agents to use their Android-based mobile devices to take deposits, handle loans and provide payment
and customer services. Even in rural areas without mobile data availability, the Mistral Mobile solution means
transactions can be completed in real-time and securely. Adarsh Credit provides Samsung mobile devices to
some of their agents who don’t already have a suitable mobile device in order to accelerate the roll-out.
Initially, agents performing high volumes of transactions in geographically dispersed locations were chosen.
They were asked to start doing their collections using the mobile application after full end-to-end training.

After only a few months, the results were impressive. One agent explains: “…Transactions happen immediately,
customer gets instant confirmation and I can carry all the tools in my pocket. Before I had to carry a heavy POS
machine hanging on my waist belt. When I enter a transaction on mobile, many members do not believe that I am
collecting deposits on mobile [but] when they started getting SMS confirmations, they felt confident and happy with
this solution. Now I also log their customer services issues immediately with the mobile application. It saves my time
in the branch that I used to spend to upload collections from POS. Now collections are posted directly from the field
and I just need to deposit the total collected cash in my collection account.”
As the initial set of agents gained confidence with the mobile application, other agents were asked to start
adopting the new mobile approach. In parallel, the processes required for training, operational support, mobile
device procurement and setup were fine-tuned to enable large-scale roll out of the solution.
The process flow for agents is very simple and efficient:

1. Adarsh Credit agents fill an enrollment form at their home branch, providing
their details and the mobile phone number to be used for the mobile application.
2. Branches send the enrollment forms via email to the central back-office in
Ahmedabad.
3. The central back-office team creates an agent account for mobile-based
collections and registers the agent on the system.
4. Once the registration is completed (during the same day), the agent is
asked to install the Adarsh mobile agent application from the Google Play
marketplace. The application performs a smart self-activation process
including multi-factor authentication-then the application is ready to be used
by the agent to provide customer services. The fully branded menu-and-icon
application is highly intuitive and agents are able to start using them without
any external training required.
5. There is a helpdesk provided for the agents in case they have questions or
problems related to making transactions or otherwise using the application.
After this the agents are ready to go to the field and perform all their
customer servicing using the application.
Adoption & Growth

Encouraged by the good results from the initial roll-out, Adarsh Credit adopted a more consistent approach
with the target to have all 140,000 Adarsh Credit agents fully equipped with the mobile solution by year end
2016. In order to drive the roll-out, Adarsh Credit’s management released a circular announcing that all agents
performing deposit collections should do so using the new mobile application and that the branches will no
longer accept manual collections.
# of agents on mobile solution

25000
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
3Q04 4Q04 1Q05 2Q05
Figure 1. Growth on the number of agents on mobile

In addition to expedite adoption, an incentive scheme was developed: qualified agents are provided a Samsung
mobile device cost-free, ensuring they will be able to adopt the mobile approach easily.
Currently there are already more than 20,000 agents on the mobile solution and the number keeps growing by
several thousand per quarter. Every day, there are over 100 new agents performing their customer services
using a mobile solution. 15,000 Samsung mobile handsets have been disbursed to date and future agents will
have an option to receive Samsung mobile tablets-all cost-free. Coincidentally, this has made Adarsh Credit the
top customer for Samsung India by order value.
# of transaction per day
45000
40000
35000
30000
25000
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
3Q04 4Q04 1Q05 2Q05
Figure 2. Growth on the daily mobile transaction volumes
The current agent pool is conducting a large number of transactions for their members at over a million per
month, and daily transaction volumes have already surpassed 40,000 transactions per day. Some of the best
performing agents conduct a staggering 200 transactions or more each day. All Daily Deposit and Recurring
Deposit services are already currently performed exclusively via the mobile solution powered by Mistral Mobile.
Becoming the world’s largest mobile solution-based agent network

As a result of the decision to adopt a mobile financial services solution from Mistral Mobile for agents, Adarsh
Credit has been able to grow the mobile-solution based agent network extremely fast to make it the world’s
largest mobile solution-based agent network, serving a population of over one million members.
The solution is highly intuitive for agents, and they do not require much by way of additional training, so the
whole enrollment/onboarding process for new agents on the mobile is extremely fast.
Adarsh Credit is planning to roll-out additional member servicing features on the mobile application to expand
the scope of their financial services. The Mistral Mobile solution enables them to easily bring totally new
member servicing features to all of their agents in the field without requiring the agents to do tedious
application re-installations: all mobile application features can be updated remotely using a “push” method
unique to Mistral Mobile.
Adarsh Credit is benefiting massively from the overall increased operational efficiencies, better member
servicing capabilities and ability to increase the financial services scope easily in the field. Himanshu Shah, CTO,
Adarsh comments: “The solution is mobile operator independent--our agents can use whatever phone they
have with whatever SIM card they're using. The menu and icons makes it super easy to train agents and use,
most don't require much training at all, everything is very intuitive. Some of the agents are doing over 200
transactions per day so this is extremely important. Also as the applications are fully localized to be in Hindi
language it makes the usage natural for the agents. There are no security concerns and we are very pleased to
with the security model used.”

Sumit Goswami
CEO of KeyPoint
Technologies
m-Commerce on the Rise in India but are

Retailers reaching their Mobile Users?
By Sumit Goswami, CEO of KeyPoint Technologies
With India’s e-commerce market set to hit $76 billion by 2021 from $13.6 billion in 2014 (according to e-Tailing
India), big retailers are going online and launching apps to attract Indian mobile consumers.
Mobile apps are empowering consumers purchase process and offering retailers and businesses to interact
with their customer dynamically. But, with more than one billion apps lining up on Android and iOS platforms,
users don’t recall or have easy access to new apps and services that are available on the mobile or the web. In
an overcrowded app market, cutting through the noise, and winning user attention has never been more
difficult. Contrary to what many would assume, app discovery doesn’t just happen in the app store, search and
discovery on some websites or apps are how most people find the apps that might be most useful to them.
Obviously there is a huge need for a better way for users to discover new apps and engage with existing ones.
Retailers and businesses must make extra effort to rethink the approach to app visibility and engagement. For
example, approach and interact with users where they are engaged most: during user conversations on a
messaging app. If users can find relevant recommendations that match their immediate intent, they are most
likely to click on a deep link to view a local offer within the shopping app. Platforms and apps that support
deep-linking can create a higher level of engagement and retailers must take full advantage of such platforms.
Messaging Apps are now the Most Loved Platforms

According to a report by Flurry, retention rates of messaging apps out-performed the average of all apps.
Messaging app retention was found to be 1.9 times better than the average for one-month retention and 5.6
times better than the average for 12-month retention.
In the agile Indian mobile landscape, it’s great to see innovations moving beyond simple ecommerce apps to
building stronger engagement models with their users. Flipkart’s new chat app Ping is a step in the right
direction of reaching users where they are engaged the most, on messaging apps. There is an incredible power
in reaching users at the point of intent or delighting them during their conversations on messaging apps. Brands

can reach out and interact most effectively through the users’ preferred medium of conversations on mobile.
We agree with Snapdeal CEO Kunal Bahl’s statement, "Mobile is one of the key drivers fueling the growth of
ecommerce. In line with this, our mobile-based open marketplace will allow businesses as well as individuals to
harness the power of the Internet instantly through conversations.”
Most certainly, a good step forward as shopping becomes more fun and social experience. However, looking at
the scenario globally, not many smartphone users have more than 5 retailer apps on their devices. Also, once
downloaded the apps are not often used, which leads one to worry about app engagement (the frequency of
use of the app once downloaded by the users).
A recent study by Forrester found that only 8 percent of the smartphone owners with at least one app used
them daily, while 13 percent said they never used the retail app they downloaded.
How are changes, additions, moves or removals of VM’s in the data center
communicated to the networking teams?
8%
45%
23%
23%
Verbally through team meetings Initiated through

Email Tickets system
or phone calls automation system
Source: www.digiday.com
Are retailers and businesses exploring the possibilities of giving their users new experiences and
engaging with them at the right time and with the right recommendations?
Finding an Optimal Solution to App Discoverability & App Engagement Challenge
App discoverability is a challenge for most brands and businesses and app engagement could be getting tougher by
the day as hundreds of new apps launch on android and iOS every day. Then, what is the best solution? There are
many apps flooding the play store, some no doubt are very engaging to users, but the optimal solution is to have a
common platform that can make these app discoverability and app engagement easier.
The future is strong for m-commerce, but a plan to reach out to the mobile users through apps only needs a
rethink. In the bigger picture we need a sustainable cross-app, cross-platform model that gives consumers a
one stop access to information, products and services that they need in that single moment of intent.
The key is to reach users where they are engaged most and doing so in a non-intrusive way to respect
user preferences.

TM
MobiKwik Confidently Staring at

US$5 Billion Transactions
By Staff Reporter
Aggressive growth has been highlighting the Digital Payments industry over the past few years. Disruptive forces
and continuous growth will continue to shape the Digital Payment landscape.
The Digital Payment sector has been witnessing a lot of innovations in the recent months. With so many
companies looking to have their fair share of the trade, it is pivotal to keep growing at regular intervals.
MobiKwik has been climbing the ladder of success pretty quickly to place themselves amongst the top Digital
Payment players in the industry. Looking at the recent developments, MobiKwik is looking to exceed
transactions more than US$5 Billion over the period of next two years. Along with this news, the Gurgaon based
company is also planning to raise up to US$100 Million in a funding round this year. Looking at the previous
funding round, the company has entered, MobiKwik has already raised close to US$30 Million in funding
through Sequoia Capital, American Express, Tree Line Asia and Cisco Investments. Catering to a user database
of more than 17 million users, the company has been growing at a very quick pace. With a futuristic vision that
the mobile payment segment in India is poised to be a big success, the company also has a solution in the
pipeline for people unable to use banking services. The company is in progress of creating a network of 1000+
merchants to cater to this cause.
Speaking about the recent developments, Bipin Preet Singh, Founder & CEO, MobiKwik said, "This year we are
looking at processing transactions to the tune of USD 700 million. Eventually, MobiKwik aims to power US$5
billion in payments between 150 million users and 5, 00,000 retailers." The company has already applied for a
payments bank license in February 2015. Shedding some light on the plans in the pipeline, Singh said that, "In
another 5 years, we expect MobiKwik to become the default payment instrument in the country, replacing both
cash and cards." With a current team of 250 people and looking to hire more employees in the coming months,
the future is looking indeed very bright for the company.
Since its inception in 2009, MobiKwik has been a driving force in easing the payment hassles faced by the Indian
users. Starting off as an online web function, MobiKwik has added a large chunk of users since including mobile
app functioning to their operations. A winner of the mBillionth Award South Asia in the Mobile Business
category in 2014, MobiKwik facilitates transactions of payments for a number of big players. Some of the big
names in MobiKwik kitty include:
• Uber • WHSmith India • BookMyShow • Star Sports
• Meru Cabs • Cafe Coffee Day • Pizza Hut • eBay
• Big Bazaar • PVR Cinemas • GoDaddy • Cleartrip

SBI Enters Digital Payments Space
with 'SBI Buddy' Launch
By Staff Reporter
The global internet usage is set for an aggressive growth in the coming years. The majority of developments will
be happening in the field of mobile and digital payments. Our mobiles and wallets will pave a way for every
technical solution. A revolution is on the cards.
The mobile wallet business and the digital payment sector in India is set to witness a lot of innovations in the
coming months. Leading from the front is India's largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI). According to the latest
reports, SBI has officially entered the digital payments market with the introduction of 'SBI Buddy' mobile
application. Close on the heels of the announcement that SBI will be strengthening their digital foray in the
years to come, the bank has already made its first move. SBI Buddy was launched in collaboration with
Accenture and MasterCard. In a ceremony attended by well-lit luminaries and distinguished dignitaries, the app
was launched by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Amongst the other dignitaries in attendance were Jayant
Sinha & Hasmukh Adhia, Minister of State for Finance and Secretary of the Department of Financial Services
respectively.
Speaking about the initiative at the launch, SBI Chairwoman Arundhati Bhattacharya said, “This is one more step
in our ambition of becoming the provider-of-choice for customers' everyday needs, both financial and
non-financial. Mobile is going to be at the center of this transformation and this application will help us
strengthen our proposition through this medium." The move is a part of the bank's vision and mission to be a
bank for the digital India. SBI has been striving hard to focus on the reduction of bad loan levels via the usage
of technology platforms in order to enhance the reach of the bank. Paytm and MobiKwik have been ruling the
roost of the mobile wallet business so far. Recently, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank also launched Payzapp & Pockets
respectively to challenge their industry bigwigs. Payzapp is a one-click payment and purchase solution, wherein
Pockets is a wallet model. Coming back to SBI Buddy. It is a mobile wallet app that can be used to send money
to new and registered customers. Other than money remittance purposes, SBI Buddy, can also be used to book
tickets for flights, movies, hotels and much more. It also facilitates the purpose of scheduling bill payments,
recharge dates, dues settlement, shopping and much more.
Along with the unveiling of SBI Buddy, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley also unveiled the logo and the website of SBI
Foundation. Huzaifa Khorakiwala, Executive Director & trustee of Wockhardt Foundation was also felicitated for
his exemplary work in the area of sanitation and construction of toilets.

Image source - www.bitsnapper.com
Next in Mobile Payments: The Uber &

Airtel Combination!
“Within five years, half of today’s smartphone users will be using their phones and mobile wallets as their
preferred method for payments.” - Peter Olynick said in 2012. He is a Card & a Payments Practice leader for
management and tech consulting firm Carlisle & Gallagher.
It can be said that Mr. Olynick has a good eye for the future developments. As he predicted 3 years ago, the
mobile payments sector is already opening up to new partnerships and innovations. And, looking at the recent
developments in the payments sector, the future is looking very bright for Uber and Airtel. The Taxi service
provider Uber has joined hands with Airtel to provide the users with the option to pay for the rides using Airtel
mobile wallet. Airtel mobile wallet users in India can now use it to pay for the rides. Both the companies have
also zeroed in on a promotional campaign that will enable the Uber customers to get the first ride free on using
the Airtel Money payment service. In an additional development, Uber is also coming up with a high-speed
internet service for their customers, powered by Airtel.
Amongst all the major cities in India, customers in Mumbai will be the first one to have the opportunity to access
it. In the coming days, the high-speed internet service will be rolled out across other major cities in the country.
The internet-based announcement is a move designed to provide Uber customers with free high-speed internet
access for easy mobile payments. All the Uber vehicles in India will be equipped with free Wi-Fi courtesy Airtel.
The move will also make Uber the first technology platform to officially launch Airtel Money. Another
promotional move suggests that Uber riders who top up their Airtel Money wallet will earn up to Rs. 500 for free.
Currently, Uber operates in 100+ cities and towns in India. Speaking about the development, Amit Jain,
President, Uber India said, “Airtel is leading the way for wireless connectivity and, as our telecom partner, will
help us in our quest toward transforming urban mobility for hundreds of millions of commuters in India.”

Expanding into the Digital Payments
Space, Flipkart Buys FX Mart
Since a long time, Flipkart has been termed as India's largest eCommerce platform. In a move to further
strengthen their feet in the Digital Payment market, Flipkart has acquired a majority stake in FX Mart.
The rise of digital payments is upon us & one cannot afford to miss the activities on the payment business front.
Along with establishing a connection with one of the most promising startups in the country, eCommerce giants
Flipkart has acquired FX Mart. Since its inception in 2013, FX Mart has been touted as one of the best payment
based startups in the country. The company has an agent network of more than 1000+ locations across India.
Founded by Amit Narang, FX Mart has its headquarters in Mohali and a corporate office in Delhi. Flipkart has
been lagging behind in the process of implementing their own payment platform. The deal amounting to Rs.
45.4 Crore, will now enable Flipkart to expand its reach in the Digital Payment sector.
According to the documents available with the Registrar of Companies (ROC), a couple of senior executives from
Flipkart have also joined FX Mart. The move is initiated to curb the amount of payments Flipkart has been
paying to the external wallet providers & increase the number of cashless transactions. FX Mart owns the
prepaid wallet licence issued by the (RBI) Reserve Bank of India. Flipkart is planning to launch a payment service
on its app. And, to take things even further, they will be launching the payment service on Myntra and
third-party sites in the following months. The current market leader, PayTM will be keeping a close eye on the
development.
The majority of the customers still opt for Cash on Delivery. However, players like PayTM and MobiKwik has
accelerated the rise of digital wallets in India. Following the suit, several payment startups like Citrus, PayU and
Zaakpay have also entered the digital payments market successfully. The Flipkart announcement comes close
on the heels of RBI announcing 10 services attaining a licence to operate their own payment banks. Ola has
already started its own wallet service named Ola Money and PayTM also has a new entity in the pipeline to be
named PayTM Payment Bank Ltd. The Singapore registered Flipkart has been trying hard to strengthen its
digital payments for a while. FX Mart is Flipkart's second acquisition in the payments sector after NGPay. The
eCommerce giants had acquired the payment startup NGPay in the year 2014.

Hardik Kapoor
Founder of Jewelsify
Indian Start-ups & the Digital Age

By Hardik Kapoor, Founder of Jewelsify
India has been the focus of International news for some time now for her voracious appetite for growth and the
new reports from various studies have been startling. She will soon have the world’s largest Smartphone user
growth rate and will soon surpass U.S. in the number of total Smartphone users. The Government of India has
already begun to roll out massive investment programs which aim to bring internet to everyone in the country,
representing one-fifth of all humanity. Furthermore, some time back, International News organization, BBC
launched an ‘India-focused’ page and has since then continued to invest in the country with new programming,
local language and digital news content. The list is unending and all this only goes on to show India’s
phenomenal rise to a Digital giant that it is today.
This digital revolution in India has been ushered in by a wave of entrepreneurship which has now hit everyone
from your local grocer to established businessmen and thought leaders. More than 800 start-ups are created
annually in India, that is also the world’s third largest and fastest growing country for these budding companies.
According to a report, these Indian start-ups that are building global solutions, primarily digital solutions, are
well-positioned to address the entire Asian market—an opportunity to expand beyond the US and Europe. The
digital medium is now increasingly being used by these Start-ups. India’s population is moving more towards
using e-commerce platforms, marketplaces, mobile apps and the Internet, thereby creating demand, need and
space for more digital products, adding that these start-ups focus on consumer Internet, big data and analytics
& communication. Today’s talent wants to work for organizations with an innovative outlook and our Startups
are giving them just that. Digital innovation is giving today’s Start-ups the competitive advantage that is required
to sustain. The synthesis of Start-ups in India with the Digital platform has provided us with smarter insights and

created strategies that have redefined businesses. Then be it digital payment companies like Mobikwik and
Paytm or an Online Food Ordering tool like Foodpanda. These Start-ups not only innovate opportunities for
themselves but also for small sellers who would otherwise go unnoticed. It has helped build partnerships that
inspire awe. These new-age entrepreneurs could very well be what Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg was to
America. The technology sector has been the biggest platform for Indians even in the past. Companies like TCS
and Infosys have put us there before. There are more Indian CEOs than any other nationality after Americans
in S&P 500 companies, according to a study by Egon Zehnder. Rajeev Suri, President and CEO of Nokia, Sanjay
Mehrotra, CEO of Sandisk Corporation, Francisco D’Souza, CEO of Cognizant, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
and the more recent Sundar Pichai who has been appointed CEO of Google have all contributed greatly to put
us there. And now, following on their footsteps and revolutionizing the digital arena are the Startups who have
established a whole new bunch of marketplace entrepreneurs who have introduced concepts from scratch and
have worked their way up. Even relatively older Companies like Accenture and Microsoft are among those
corporates that have built digitally-savvy, innovation-driven brands with the help of their Start-up programmes.
Because they realise that nobody wants to work for a Dinosaur. Betting big on the Digital India initiative, Intel
has joined the Central government to launch an initiative to encourage Startups with a total grant of Rs 1.5
crores. The initiative called the “Innovate for Digital India Challenge” is jointly being organised and funded by the
Department of Science and Technology (DoST) and Intel. Around 20 ideas would be selected from across the
country and will be mentored for 12 weeks at the College of Engineering, Pune under the aegis of Indian
Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Nasscom forecasts that if the pace at which the industry is augmenting
continues, the country will serve as a home to more than 11,500 tech/digital Start-ups by the end of 2020.
Start-ups have also been tying up with each other in a service and support network where they mutually benefit
from each other, accelerating growth and generating higher revenues in the process. They also seek some SEO
gains from these alliances. In some other cases there is more of a symbiotic relationship between the parties.
Another very important aspect of Digital Innovation in India has been its foray into Communication and Social
Media. With Indian users breaking through the 100 million mark, second only to the US in terms of total users
in Facebook, it has turned out to be a very powerful tool for both individuals and businesses. It has become an
entrepreneur’s best friend and it has become imperative for all Startups to have a social media presence. With
the use of social media, companies can reach out to a greater number of people in lesser time. With some
investment of effort in social media management consistently, platforms like Facebook and Twitter help
businesses establish a relationship with their customers. Initially running on a shoestring budget, the free
marketing tools offered by these social media platforms provides a huge boost to these Start-ups increasing
their customer base manifolds and creating awareness.
Furthermore, the Digital India campaign by the Government is truly an ambitious project. As a part of its huge
agenda, it will help at least 10,000 Start-ups as more and more people in this country are connected to the
internet. This campaign will be instrumental in creating new job opportunities in the near future and it is a boon
for the booming e-commerce space.
With ‘starting your own business’ becoming much more accepted in the industry, and a proliferation of ideas
due to increased access to education, the signs are very positive for India. It still has many problems to
overcome and though the challenges will change over the next decade, I am quite certain that the new
generation will be able to rise up to them.

Julie Woods-Moss
CEO-NextGen Business
and Chief Marketing
Officer at Tata
Communications Ltd
10 things every non-coder should

know about coding
By Julie Woods-Moss (@juliewoodsmoss)
Do you think coding is solely for coders? Think again! To make the most of business opportunities and minimise
the digital divide, it is necessary for everyone to understand the language of technology – allowing marketing,
IT and also agencies to have a common language with as little ambiguity as possible. Here are the 10
(surprisingly simple!) things that I believe any marketer – including all the way up to the CMO – should know
about coding:
1. What is an app?
An app is a computer program which performs a specific task. e.g. Google maps. The app accesses the
hardware of the device the program is running on.
2. What is a native app?

This is an app developed to run on a specific platform or device – usually to take advantage of the wider
functionality available in that device or platform. For example, iOS apps are specifically for apple devices and
available in the Apple app store.
3. What is a web app?

A web app can run on any device from a web browser – usually making them simpler but limited in capability.
4. What is HTML?
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is used to tell the web browser what the content of the page is. Most web
pages are made up of content like headings, paragraphs, images, forms and so on. HTML5 has extended the
power of web apps such that video and audio can all be launched from a web page – thereby bringing web apps
closer to native apps. For example, HTML5 allows geolocation, camera and local storage to all be launched from
a web page.

5. What are HTML tags or semantic markup?
HTML tags are used by web crawlers to identify the contents of a web page. If a page is just plain text then a
crawler has no way of knowing what is on the web page and therefore the page can't be manipulated by search
engine optimisation. It’s basically just a simple language for the World Wide Web.
6. What is CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

CSS defines the design and style of individual elements within an app's programming. For instance, the size of
the border, the font size, the colour, etc. It’s a way of masterminding the look and feel of a whole site so a design
change can be made on many (or all) pages with one tiny change in one line of code.
7. What is javascript?
Javascript is a programming language and it allows static web pages to be turned into apps – making them more
interactive. Javascript is made up of variables, logic and functions.
8. How do you add animation to an app?

In the past flash (animation software) was used for animation. This is no longer the case. Today developers can
animate directly from the CSS.
9. What is responsive design?

This is a new way of publishing online content so that the content responds to the available screen size of the
device – providing an optimal viewing experience.
10. What is the Open Graph standard?

The Open graph standard allows you to define what details from your website should be displayed on social
sites when people share your website links on their profiles.
The code for the Mobile app I developed during the Decoded session

Vikram Malhi
MD, Expedia Asia
“India will be the fastest growing APAC travel

market between 2013 to 2016” - Vikram Malhi
In an exclusive interview with Nilotpal Chakravarti, Mr. Vikram Malhi, MD – Expedia Asia, talks at length about the
travel commerce industry and what is driving the growth in India; besides the challenges the sector faces today.
TA: What would you consider as the highlights of your online initiatives in regards to drive growth for
travel commerce in India?
VM: We recently launched Scratchpad, based on our insights from the last 4-5 years, which revealed that 5 years
ago consumers used to search 15 times to book a flight, which has now gone up to 48 times. Consumers are not
only spending more time on making one flight booking, but also more time researching online, or on the move.

Real Time Feedback, designed following feedback from hoteliers who wanted more support in securing positive
hotel reviews, targets the mobile-savvy traveler. The interface of real time reviews is simple. Shortly after a
guest checks into an Expedia.com-booked hotel, they receive an email or app notification asking them three
short questions: “How was your check in?”; “How is your room?” and “Are you happy with the location?” Guests
answer these questions through a simple, intuitive and fun interface and are offered the chance to enter
specific feedback, i.e. “I didn’t have towels in my room.” The review is transmitted in real time to the hotelier via
Expedia PartnerCentral, giving them the opportunity to act upon the feedback and avoid a potentially negative
trip review. These initiatives have helped us reach out more to the consumers and give solutions instantly.
TA: What do you think are the major concerns of consumers in India when they book hotel
accommodation or other travel plans online?
VM: As per the recent Expedia Holiday Activity Report, 20% Indians are anxious about budget, 14% are worried
about getting others to agree on a same opinion. 40% are anxious of getting the best deals and 21% think that
during peak season there is huge crowds which lead to poor service.
TA: How significantly is travel commerce revenue in India growing? Is it on the same page with the
other markets in Asia like China & Hong Kong?
VM: Travel industry has seen a boom in the Indian space and by 2016; OTAs will account about 37% of the total
travel market. Indian travel gross booking will increase double digit annually from US$ 19.7 billion in 2013 to
$27.5 Billion in 2016. India and Indonesia will be the fastest growing APAC travel market from 2013 to 2016,
accelerating 39% and 37% respectively. Online travel booking grew 6% to amount to $81.9 billion in 2015.
TA: What do you think are the challenges for suppliers with establishment of online travel agents and
now travel search engines in Asia?
VM: We only complement the distribution of products and services and help suppliers reach a much wider
audience. OTAs spend millions of dollars on marketing & technology each year and thus are able to channelize
this into business for the supplier eventually.
TA: Cross-device tracking & in-house analytics with optimization teams is looking like the trends to
watch for. What plans does your company have for it?
VM: We targeted the millennial consumers with our technology offerings like the mobile app-launched in 2011
and the tab app-launched in early 2014 that enable multi-device research and bookings on the go. In fact, we
are one of the very few players to have a complete suite of cross-device product, seamlessly integrated to show
consumers’ last searches and preferences, regardless of the mediums in use. We have introduced specific
features like the scratchpad that make the travel research and booking easier for the consumer.
Typically what we have observed is that the consumers like to research on their tabs and laptops and use the
mobile app to research the prices. There is an increased rate of booking on mobiles, also owing to better and
exclusive deals available on the medium. Our intuitive mobile app not only serves as a travel companion, with
reminders for the holiday, flight, prompts for the flight boarding gate when you reach the airport and baggage
belt after landing, followed by the directions to the hotel booked, but also serves as a huge minefield of data on
consumer behavior and booking triggers.
Expedia, with its unique capability of tracking a single consumer’s journey across multiple devices including the
desktop, laptop, mobile and tablet, has been able to steer ahead of competition with regards to technology and
data science. This has not only enabled us in customizing our offerings but also to create a loyal customer base
in the long run. We are collecting a huge quantum of data from multiple consumer touch points like –research
done on which device, preferred device for bookings, how the reservations are made, how soon the
reservations are being made before the travel date, 1 month, 45 days, 10 days or even the same day. We slice
data and draw inferences on reservation trends that help us to build and integrate relevant, new products.

3 Web-Based Indian Startups Poised
to Grow Big in the Coming Years
By Staff Reporter
Develop Success from failures. Discouragement and failures are two of the surest stepping stones to
success. - Dale Carnegie
Turning a startup into a successful and a full-fledged business is not an easy task. Budding entrepreneurs and
innovators must possess the kick to try something new & should not be deterred by failures and letdowns. The
last five years have witnessed a lot of Indian startups trying to make a mark on the global map. And, by the look
at the recent developments, things are only going to get bigger in the coming years. Recently, news surfaced
that the American President, Barack Obama is going to felicitate 3 Indian American startup entrepreneurs. This
news must provide enough fodder to the budding entrepreneurs from the country to innovate and inspire
through their creativity and business acumen. Let's have a look at 3 web based Indian startups that are poised
to grow big in the coming years.
JustUnfollow
Since its inception in 2010, JustUnfollow (or 'JU' as it is fondly known as) has made its mark across various Social
Media platforms. JU is a fiend management app for Twitter and Instagram that has definitely justified its value
in terms of the numbers. With more than 4 million users, JustUnfollow has garnered a lot of attention in India.
Along with launching an Android app, JU has featured in a number of magazines along with winning a number
of prestigious awards.
PriceBaba
A brainchild of Mumbai-based Annkur Agarwal, PriceBaba.com can be defined as a shopping intelligence engine
for the ones looking to buy mobile phones. Along with carving out a niche for themselves in the market,
PriceBaba was also featured in various news portals for the Android Ladoo campaign. The platform allows the
customers to figure out the ongoing prices at the retail stores around him sitting online itself. PriceBaba has
been plying its trade in Mumbai and Bangalore for now. With so many more cities to explore, PriceBaba is sure
to expand aggressively in the coming months. With 2 investors already in the fold & several more looking to
invest in the innovative platform, this startup is surely one of the best ones in India to watch out for.
Teabox
They like to believe in a motto that one needs a glass apart to be class apart. Teabox has been gunning to
revolutionize the 150 year old tea industry in India. Since its inception in 2012, they also won eSparks - India's largest
eCommerce showcase platform in 2013. In 2014, they have shipped in more than five million cups of tea along with
exporting Indian tea to more than 65 countries. It has been termed as one of the first truly global eCommerce
businesses from India. An eCommerce business that started from the lanes of Siliguri has defined buying tea
online. And, with backing of Accel Partners and Horizon Ventures, Teabox is surely sitting in a sweet spot.

Published on 2nd / 3rd of every month | Posted on 6th / 7th of every month | RNI. No.: DELENG/2009/30094 | Postal Registration No.: DL(S) - 01/3375/2010-12
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HELPING YOU THINK ONLINE

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The Porn Ban “More we ban something,

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N. Saikia Thinking Aloud magazine is gradually becoming my main source of learning

07-12 • Merging Traditional Marketing &

29-35 • 10 things every non-coder should

The Porn Ban-Dilemma Unresolved

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10 September 2015 | THINKING ALOUD!

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The above are author’s personal views.

12 September 2015 | THINKING ALOUD!

“Quality has always been our USP”

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14 September 2015 | THINKING ALOUD!

Google Trends Graph 1: Classiﬁeds industry comparison Aug 2015

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“The legal framework around this

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India is not yet ready for the 'Mobile App Only'

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September 2015 | THINKING ALOUD! 19

The mobile revolution: rolling out at scale

20 September 2015 | THINKING ALOUD!

The process ﬂow for agents is very simple and eﬃcient:

Adoption & Growth

# of agents on mobile solution

Figure 1. Growth on the number of agents on mobile

September 2015 | THINKING ALOUD! 21

# of transaction per day

Figure 2. Growth on the daily mobile transaction volumes

Becoming the world’s largest mobile solution-based agent network

22 September 2015 | THINKING ALOUD!

m-Commerce on the Rise in India but are

Messaging Apps are now the Most Loved Platforms

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Verbally through team meetings Initiated through

Finding an Optimal Solution to App Discoverability & App Engagement Challenge

24 September 2015 | THINKING ALOUD!

MobiKwik Confidently Staring at

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26 September 2015 | THINKING ALOUD!

Next in Mobile Payments: The Uber &

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28 September 2015 | THINKING ALOUD!

Indian Start-ups & the Digital Age

September 2015 | THINKING ALOUD! 29

30 September 2015 | THINKING ALOUD!

10 things every non-coder should

2. What is a native app?

3. What is a web app?

September 2015 | THINKING ALOUD! 31

6. What is CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)