In the last Iranian year (ended March 19, 2016), Iran’s mobile operators made more revenues from the sales of data and value-added services while revenues from voice calls and text messages declined year-on-year, an official with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology announced.
Value-Added Service refers to non-core services, or in short, all services beyond standard voice calls and fax transmissions, which may include quick codes and multimedia messaging, local technology website ICTNA reported.
According to deputy communications and information technology minister, Morteza Barari, Iran’s first mobile network operator MCI (Hamrah-e-Aval) earned 2 trillion rials ($58 million) from the sales of VAS in the last Iranian year (ended March 19, 2016).
“During the same period, the country’s second and third operators, Irancell and RighTel respectively, earned 10 trillion rials ($286 million) from the sales of VAS,” he said.
The official did not, however, provide the same data from the previous years.
Barari explained that the global trend in the sales of services offered by mobile network operators show that revenues from the sales of text messages and voice calls are generally on the decline while those from the sale of data and VAS is increasing.
“The same is true in Iran, as information and communications technology is developing and the taste of users and the telecoms markets are changing accordingly,” he said.
