India’s largest mobile value added services (VAS) player OnMobile is betting on social networking applications on mobile phones for growth in financial year 2010-11. The company, which closed FY10 with a revenue growth of 12 per cent at Rs 454 crore, expects growth to be north of 12 per cent this year.

Sanjay Uppal, president and COO of OnMobile, told Financial Chronicle that social networking would be a big driver for both the company and mobile VAS sector.

Two applications he is gung-ho about are social RBT, where users can share tones with friends through Facebook, and social address book which integrates contacts from groups like phone, SMS, Facebook and IM into one format to make it easier for the user. The address book application is being rolled out with Orange in France and talks are on with Indian operators for this product, said Uppal.

Search and discovery is another area OnMobile is keen on. It has rolled out a music search product with Airtel and is in discussions with other operators in India.

With 3G imminent, the firm is planning to offer enhanced services for about 90 per cent of its product portfolio.

OnMobile is expected to expand its presence to 35-40 countries from the present 24 countries it is present in the next 12-18 months including in Latin America, Europe, US and Africa. While its plans for raising Rs 1,000 crore from the market to enable acquisitions were on track, Uppal didn’t specify a timeline.