Sify introducing Mobile Shoping

Things just got better for mobile phone users on GPRS services! Sify Limited's online shopping portal, www.sifymall.com, has announced a tie-up with JiGrahak - a mobility solutions provider, to enable millions of mobile phone users on GPRS services to buy a wide variety of products and services over their phones.

SifyMall will utilise JiGrahak's m-commerce/m-payment platform "NGPay" (Next Generation Pay), in order to provide the new mobile shopping service.

Speaking at the launch, Surya Mantha, senior vice president - interactive services, SifyMall, said, "We are happy to be working with JiGrahak in bringing secure M-Commerce services to the millions of mobile subscribers using GPRS services in India. With the Indian mobile subscriber base growing at the rate of about 2 million users a month, and expected to touch 200 million by 2007, the potential for mobile shopping is huge. We expect to grow the mobile shopping service space with this 'one-of-its kind' offering, and work towards being a leader in this area. In addition to buying products and services from SifyMall, Sify broadband users can now also renew their broadband subscriptions through this application, using their mobiles for convenience."

Sourabh Jain, partner, JiGrahak Mobility Solutions, said, "JiGrahak is excited to have Sify on board the NGPay platform. The potential of 'Anytime, Anywhere' commerce has been talked about since quite some time, but technology and business challenges have remained. We believe that NGPay would help realize this immense potential, and define the world of mobile commerce and mobile payments. End-users from around the world can download and use (free-of-cost) the NGPay application on their mobile handsets from anywhere in the world, provided they have a J2ME-enabled phone and an appropriate GPRS subscription."

Other than basic models, most mobile phones are GPRS compatible. Users can call their service operators to enable GPRS facility on their phones, so that they can shop over their phones, book airline tickets online, browse websites, etc. With a GPRS-enabled mobile connection, users can log on to www.ngpay.com and download the NGPay application on to their mobile handsets.

Once installed, this application can then be used to shop "Anytime, Anywhere" for various products such as flowers, books, Movie DVDs and VCDs on SifyMall.com.

To start with, payments can be made using credit cards; later users can graduate to making payments from bank accounts.