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New Research Paper: The ABCs of SMB Transformation: Apps, Broadband, and the Cloud May 6, 2013

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, 4th Wave, AORTA, Applications, Chetan Sharma Consulting, Connected Devices, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Mobile Cloud Computing, Mobile Ecosystem, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

The ABCs of SMB Transformation: Apps, Broadband, and the Cloud

- A collaboration between Chetan Sharma Consulting and AT&T

http://www.chetansharma.com/ABCs_of_SMB_Transformation.htm

Download pdf (1.5 MB)

Introduction

In 2013, the US mobile data revenues will exceed $90 billion accounting for over 165% growth in the last 5 years. This makes US the biggest market for mobile data solutions and services. The smartphone penetration in the US went past 50% by mid-2012. The number of applications available to consumer has quadrupled in just the last two years. While the growth in the smartphone segment has been quite impressive, the tablet adoption rate has been the highest in the consumer electronics history. The advent of mobile broadband, powerful computing devices, reliable cloud services and applications have changed the computing landscape forever.

At the same time, the Consumerization of IT is changing the face of the enterprise architecture as well. This is felt more acutely in the small-and-medium business (SMB) segment. US is also the biggest enterprise market in the world and the SMB segment represents the more agile and technology-savvy of the ecosystem. In fact, we think it is a leading indicator of how technologies are going to be adopted in the enterprise ecosystem, what trends will prove to be disruptive, which vertical segments will embrace efficiency, and most importantly, how should we think about the ever-changing landscape as we look towards rest of the decade.

Small businesses are at the heart of the US economic engine. They represent roughly 45% of the non-farm GDP. Every administration, every president focuses on small business growth and job creation. Given the importance of small businesses to the economy, it is worthwhile to look at how their technology needs are changing. Additionally, it is important to understand how they are adopting technology and the impact it is having on their productivity, competitiveness, and efficiency. The technology adoption is also putting some of the traditional industry segments at risk while creating several new growth areas.

To understand the impact of mobile broadband, devices, and cloud applications, we conducted a survey of eighty SMB companies of different shapes and sizes across the US serving different verticals constituting over ten thousand employees. We also looked at the data from over twelve thousand companies in the SMB segment and over twenty thousand larger enterprises. Additionally, we conducted a series of interviews to better understand the motivations, requirements, and feedback of these companies. These companies have been in business for twenty years on average with over two years of experience with mobile data solutions. By understanding how they use and benefit from mobile data solutions, we can better identify the course of enterprise mobility in the US and around the world.

Some interesting findings:

· Small and medium businesses are leading indicators of technology adoption. As referenced in this paper, SMB smartphone and tablet penetration is more than 90 and 65 percent respectively; whereas national smartphone and tablet penetration is roughly 55 and 22 percent.

· Mobile First to Mobile Only. Last year, we proposed that we will start moving from mobile first to mobile only economy. We said that we are approaching a pivot point wherein the mobile first doctrine is going to move to mobile only. We are starting to see strong evidence of that shift. In our survey, roughly 30% of the SMBs are transitioning from desktops/notebooks to smartphones/tablets. Business software and solutions are being transformed by the use of smartphones and tablets. With this shift, we’ve seen the emergence of a generation of app developers focusing primarily on the mobile app platform.

· Mobile broadband, cloud, and apps are providing real and tangible ROI. The SMBs in the survey saw an average savings of 40 minutes per worker per day, which translates into significant impact on profits over the course of the year.

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

Disclaimer: Some of the companies mentioned in this paper are our clients.

Mobile World Congress 2013 Recap March 6, 2013

Posted by chetan in : 4G, AORTA, Chetan Sharma Consulting, European Wireless Market, LTE, Mobile World Congress, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 6 comments

“Welcome to Spain, Thank you for your business,” remarked the immigration officer and thus started my yearly pilgrimage to the grand slam of mobile – The Mobile World Congress 2013. It is truly a global event with participants from virtually all countries looking to do business, learn a thing or two, and ponder over what the year will bring forth. The show moved to a new venue which made the logistics work much better for attendees and exhibitors but the venue lost its charm and character. We used this opportunity to feel the pulse of the industry and understand where things are headed. This note summarizes our observations from the show.

While there was no blockbuster announcements or products that will knock your socks off, several interesting trends emerged that will keep the industry exciting to watch in 2013.

The perennial search for the #3 ecosystem continues: Windows sales have disappointed thus far, Blackberry has launched new devices but hasn’t quite hit the mark. So, while consumers seem perfectly happy with iOS and Android, industry’s desire to have a third robust ecosystem is palpable. The biggest announcement in that regard was from Firefox OS and in a matter of 12 months, it has not only forged a strong alliance with operators, it is actually getting ready to ship phones. It is going to be targeting the low-end of the market which is a smart strategy but a lot depends on the range of price points of the devices and how quickly it can attract the developer ecosystem. Given that Android device price points are hovering around $50 and it is a mature ecosystem with great developer reach and support, it will be challenging to convince consumers to go the Firefox route. However, if the price points are attractive enough, with the distribution power of some key operators, we could see some early traction. Ubuntu, Jolla, and Tizen were also vying for attention.

LTE everywhere: LTE deployment is growing at a very fast pace. The US market is ahead of the curve with almost national footprint from Verizon followed by substantial coverage from the remaining three operators. Elsewhere, operators are gearing for deployment once some of the spectrum issues/auctions are sorted out.

The 4^th Wave has arrived: Last year, we put forth a framework for future mobile industry revenues in our 4^th wave paper. Since then, the framework has been embraced by many leading operators around the globe. It was good to hear operators talking more about services rather than data plans. Several areas were discussed by the leading tier 1 operators such as health, retail, education, cloud, M2M, automobile, enterprise, security, connected living, home security, commerce, identity and privacy, big data and analytics. Operators who are able to steer their giant organizations to focus on services will be able to survive the commoditization of access. We will have more say on the subject later this year.

Yo OTT, luego existo: which is Spanish for “I OTT, therefore I am” To be a player in the digital world, one has to be an OTT provider for communications and beyond. The interesting dichotomy of the communications OTT business is that very few will survive. The end state of a majority of them (if not all) is either an M&A with a telco or an Internet player or they run out of cash. The new breed of OTTs has forced the lumbering giants to think different about their customers and their markets.

Mobile Broadband, Cloud, and Apps: The troika of broadband network access, the cloud infrastructure and the applications are creating a sea change in the enterprise, especially the SMB segment. It is also changing how developers see the enterprise segment as the opportunity migrates from windows to iOS and Android. We conducted some in-depth research in the space and will have more to share later this year. Our Mobile Breakfast Series later this month will be dealing with the topic of Cloud and SDN in more detail.

Redefining Monopoly: The mobile and internet worlds have collided but the regulatory regimes haven’t changed. European operators seemed to indicate that it is time to reassess what a monopoly really means and the rules should apply to all layers of the ecosystem stack and that means devices and OSs as well.

Device Launches: All major OEMs are following the Apple playbook as far as the device announcements are concerned. To garner media attention, it is best to announce the “hero” devices away from major shows. Just like CES earlier this year, MWC lacked any big device announcements. Nokia announced mid-low tier devices to expand its portfolio that will help it in unit sales. ZTE, Huawei, LG, Asus, NEC, Sony, HTC, HP, Asus, Acer, Lenovo all had new devices to display but media’s eyes are set on Samsung’s Galaxy release later this month.

Local OEMs: Traditional OEMs are facing some healthy competition from new entrants in local markets. Players like Fly and Yotaphone in Russia are giving the veterans a run for their money. By both innovating with new features but also by customizing the devices for the local market (e.g. bigger battery that last 3 days), they are creating their own niche. After gaining good market share in Russia, Fly is expanding into other markets.

Connected Cars: When the biggest operator by revenue announces a deal with the biggest car manufacturer, people take notice. GM and AT&T announced LTE cars by 2015 which will pretty much force the entire auto industry to provide broadband connectivity in a hurry. However, the auto industry has misplaced expectations on apps and any incremental revenue they might be able to harness from them.

Samsung Knox, Blackberry – can you hear me now: Android is probably the most insecure mobile platform out there. Blackberry has long been the gold standard, iOS has improved, Windows has security features built in but security has always been a step-child of Android. Samsung’s Knox announcement elevates Samsung’s role in the mobile enterprise and to some extent takes over some of the development capability of Android that are squarely aimed at Blackberry. The container security feature set with MDM integration is well thought out and opens up the mobile enterprise market for Samsung especially in North America and Western Europe.

Spectrum and Regulations: While spectrum was a universal issue with the operators, more is better, European operators were particularly vocal about the state of the regulatory affairs on the continent. Regulators, they complained, are killing the industry by cutting of revenue opportunities, are fostering too much competition, too much taxation, and too involved in the operations of the operators. This is leading to declining revenues and turmoil at the operators. There might be some unintended consequences of weakening operators and regulators will have to grapple with some interesting questions that a free market economy will pose in the coming days.

TU Go – Take your phone number everywhere: In our opinion, Telefonica has done the best job of dealing with the digital world in putting forth an org structure that can crank out applications and services at Internet speed. TU Go is a new service (launched in UK) that allows users to take their phone number to any supported device and use it for calling and texting – number in the cloud at its best.

NFC is dead, Long Live NFC: Vodafone CEO’s frank admission that he doesn’t expect to make much money from NFC gave the audience a bit of a pause. Several NFC initiatives have floundered without clear goals or vision. Instead of working together, the industry has remained fragmented and thus the lack of scale has hampered progress. For too long, the industry has focused on payments but the opportunity lies in the engagement with the customer. For better or for worse, the financial industry has sequestered its commission for the foreseeable future. We saw some clever NFC implementations to drive consumer engagement and commerce in retail environments, primarily in Europe.

Consolidation looms: The question that is on everyone’s mind but was hardly discussed at the show was the coming onslaught of consolidation at virtually all layers of the ecosystem.

Developing Markets: Connecting the next billion was a recurring theme. The smartphone penetration in the developing world is in the single digits. More than that, introducing consumers to a computing platform for the first time is an exciting opportunity. Creating services that are tailored to the local environment remains an opportunity that can have a profound impact on society. Our own work with the UN/ITU has shown the transformative role of mobile in almost every walk of life. The device unit growth is coming from the developing markets and as they get connected, the world becomes flatter, and the competitive dynamics in a globalizing world will create for some interesting policy and political battles.

M2M and Internet of Things: As we wrote in our book “Wireless Data Services” back in 2004, the connectivity is becoming pervasive. The module costs are coming down fast and the desire to measure and track every number that is important in our lives is creating a massive opportunity. However, privacy, battery life, environment, security remain key issues that need to be tackled.

Identity as a business opportunity: In a digital world where access to information and resources depend on verification of your identity, the guards and keepers of the identity information have a big role to play. As such, “identity” management is emerging as an opportunity that can be monetized. In the online world, Facebook has become the dominant way to integrate apps and services. In the mobile world, operators can play a significant role in authentication and verification. Will the two worlds collide? Fasten your seat belts.

The Post PC world: As an experiment, for the MWC trip, I carried just the Nexus 7 tablet and an iPhone. I felt liberated. In the past, for day trips, I have relied just on iPad/iPhone for taking care of my computing needs. For this trip, I wanted something that I can carry in jacket pocket. Nexus was good enough for taking simple notes, email, browser and even some phone calls. I could easily switch back-and-forth between the tablet and the phone, and the combined battery life lasted the whole day.

The Miscellaneous:

· Google’s absence from the show puzzled many

· The enthusiasm for RCS/Joyn seems to have subsided as reality sets in

· Nokia is broadening the reach of its HERE platform to other operating systems

· AT&T/Ericsson showed WebRTC demo

· Facebook announced messaging partnerships with operators in developing countries

· Small cells remained a hot topic though seen more of a compliment for the macro network

· Signaling traffic continues to grow at a faster pace than the data traffic as more LTE devices come on the network

· Qualcomm launched RF360 solution to deal with frequency band fragmentation which is serious problem for LTE roaming

· Yotaphone with its dual screen (front and back) and NEC Medias with its stacked up screens had something fresh to offer in the devices space when 99% of the devices look the same

· Virtualization is the new black in mobile networks

Best booth: Ericsson’s networked world theme was well thought-out and provided a unique exploratory view of the opportunities and technology evolution. A close second – Connected City.

Best party: There won’t be an MWC without the bevy of parties every night. Qualcomm again stole the show with the jam-packed confluence of the mobile elite.

2013 Mobile Industry Predictions Survey January 2, 2013

Posted by chetan in : Chetan Sharma Consulting, Connected Devices, European Wireless Market, IP Strategy, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Predictions, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so far

First things first. From all of us at Chetan Sharma Consulting, we wish you and yours a very happy, healthy, and prosperous 2013. My thanks to all who participated in our 2013 Mobile Predictions Annual Survey. It gives our community an insider’s view of the trends and predictions for the New Year.

2012 was a terrific year for the mobile industry. Mobile data continued to drive most of the mobile growth around the world. Mobile also started impacting every major vertical industry around the globe. In fact, mobile has become so ingrained in the fabric of business productivity and social interaction that it is not longer the new growth engine, it has become the engine.

The competitive dynamics stayed quite vibrant in 2012. We saw epic battles in the markets as well as in the courts. 2012 also saw the PC value chain struggling for relevance while the smartphones and tablets unit sales captured all the attention and headlines.

As we peer into 2013, we will see the total number of cellular subscriptions eclipsing humans on the planet. The connected device made steady progress. Anything that should be connected is being connected - creating a web of new opportunities and challenges.

LTE has become the fastest deployed cellular technology in the approximately 35 year history of the industry. Broadband combined with connected devices and applications are changing the way we live, we interact with others, do business, and consume information.

The European economic crisis impacted many players especially the large telcos, making the transition to digital ever more urgent. As voice and messaging revenue curves decline and access revenue approaches its high mark in the next few years, investment in the fourth curve becomes critical for all players.

Our annual survey is a way for us to engage our community on the trends for the next year. We put some of the pressing questions to our colleagues and industry leaders. We are able to glean some valuable insights from their choices and comments, some tangible shifts, and get a sense of what’s to come. Executives, developers, and insiders (n=200) from leading mobile companies and startups from across the value chain and from around the world participated to help see what 2013 might bring to keep us on our toes. What makes this survey unique is that it draws upon the collective wisdom of folks who are at the center of the mobile evolution. The survey provides a view of how they see the upcoming year for mobile.

30 names were randomly drawn for the limited edition of the Mobile Future Forward 2012 book. The winners are:

Ryan Carney, UX, Gfk
Wes Biggs, CTO, Adfonic
Volker Hirsch, Head of BD, RIM
Bobby Morrison, President, Verizon Wireless
Chris Walls, Strategy, Huawei
Von Cameron, EVP, Smith Micro
Sami Makelainen, Manager, Telstra
Martin Fichter, VP, HTC
Jeff Hasen, CMO, Hipcricket
Paul Brody, VP, IBM
Michael Mullany, CEO, Sencha
Mick Welch, Manager, Nokia
Jana Messerschmidt, VP, Twitter
Akio Orii, SVP, Toyota
Gina Bovara, Software Services, Intel
Mark Brill, Lead Partner, Brand Emotivity
Stuart Saunders, CEO, Mobile Defense
Tony Greco, Director, ZTE
Venu Vasudevan, Sr. Director, Motorola
Elliott Hamilton, Sr. Director, TeleCommunication Systems
Biljana Jovicic, VAS, Digitel
Robin Jewsbury, Cofounder, Promoht
Julie Dey, VP, Rootmetrics
Pat Nunally, VP, Upaid
Paul Upham, Director, Welldoc
Sagar Tamang, Director, Nielsen
Andrew Meadors, Engineer, Cisco
Nikao Yang, SVP, Adcolony
Pelle Larsen, Director, SingTel
Kelly Amsbry, Sr. Planner, Microsoft
Elisabeth Rainge, Head – Strategy, NSN

Thanks again to everyone who contributed. We will be calling on you again next year.

Be well, do good work, stay in touch, and stay away from Triskaidekaphobiacs.

Thanks and with warm wishes,

Chetan

What was most newsworthy in Mobile 2012?

2012 was a spectacular year for smartphones. Smartphones in most western nations are now over 80% of the devices sold every quarter. China will soon become the biggest market by unit volume and the rest of the world is catching up fast as we see sub-$50 Android devices flood the market. Apple vs. Samsung has become akin to Lakers vs. Celtics of the eighties or the India vs. Pakistan rivalry in cricket. The passion and intense competition between the two super powers was clearly the headline of the year. That pushed the Android vs. iOS tussles as the subheading for 2012. As we enter into 2013, the legacy computing aka PC players will need to reinvent themselves or expect substantial decline in their fortunes.

What will be the biggest mobile stories of 2013?

The role of mobile data in industry’s growth has been cemented by the insatiable appetite for higher speeds, more apps, and social interaction and is expected to continue at a feverish pace as LTE roles out around the world and the developing world catches up. We are likely to see the Apple and Google rivalry intensify. One is a master of hardware and the other of software. Both have their Achilles heel and much is at stake in the coming year. Many expect Microsoft’s Windows to make progress to lay claim to become a viable 3^rd ecosystem. 2013 will try to answer that question.

Who will be the most open player in the mobile ecosystem in 2013?

Who are the top 4 important players in the mobile ecosystem?

Many in the industry talk about Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon as the most important platform players in the business today. However, when it comes to mobile, in addition to the defacto top-two, our survey picks Samsung as number three by a good margin. Samsung has become a strong player in the digital ecosystem that commands attention and respect. The top 10-15 global operators play a strong role in the mobile ecosystem and collectively edged out Amazon and others for the number four spot. Facebook and Microsoft while strong in the desktop world have a lot to prove to be considered a top tier player in mobile.

What will be the breakthrough categories in mobile in 2013?

Our industry seems fascinated with the potential of mobile payments and voted it to be the top mobile applications and services category for 2013. Given the importance of Cloud in all apps/services, it is no surprise that it is part of the top 2. Mobile Commerce, Big data, and connected devices rounded up the top 5.

What will be the most popular consumer mobile applications in 2013?

There are regional variations when it comes to the popularity and revenue potential of mobile applications. Messaging, mobile commerce, and social dominate the developing world while location based services replaces messaging in the developed world as the key mobile application. Mobile health and gaming made a strong show in both regions.

Which will be the most dominant tablet platform in 2 years?

So far, iOS has dominated the tablet landscape. With iPad, Apple has effectively carved out the mid-high tier of the tablet space. Android players are losing or barely making any revenue from this device category. Windows tablets are priced so high that it is trying to compete with laptops rather than the tablets. Our panel expects Android to catch-up in unit sales and iOS to dominate the revenues by good margins. Windows is likely to stay a marginal player.

Who will make the biggest mobile acquisition in 2013?

Microsoft and Google both have big cash balanced to make some sizable acquisitions in 2013. Microsoft lacks traction and attention and will try to make a move but which player can give them an edge? Apple also needs to beef up its software operations significantly but doesn’t have the history of big acquisitions. Operators are also looking to become OTT players themselves and might make moves to shore up their strategic interests. Many participants think that Nokia and RIM have seen their final year as an independent entity.

How will the "Apps vs. Mobile Web" debate shape up in 2013?

In 2012, many expected the resurgence of “mobile web” but it hasn’t panned out that way. Google has doubled up on apps, Facebook realized HTML5 isn’t going to cut it, and the expectations pendulum swung back to the apps and might stay there for 2013.

Who will dominate the mobile payment/commerce space?

Three years ago, mobile payments/commerce seemed to be the “blue ocean” opportunity but financial guys have firmly protected their turf, at least for now. Hopes were high for operator led initiatives but the enthusiasm has tapered off. Startups like Square are doing more to disrupt the payments space than some of the established players. The only exception is PayPal, which has so far been able to create good distance with the competitors. Microsoft has surprisingly been absent in a critical space.

Which solutions will gain the most traction for managing mobile data broadband consumption?

4G, mobile offload, and tiered pricing have been most effective in managing the costs of mobile data consumption though spectrum has garnered more of the noise share.

Which category will generate the most mobile data revenue in 2013?

Access dominates the developed world while messaging has the lion share in the developing world. We will see access becoming the dominant category in the emerging markets fairly soon.

Which European operator is likely to emerge stronger from the current economic climate?

European operators have been battered by struggling economy and regulatory changes. Many are rethinking their strategy, shedding off assets, and just trying to keep their head above water. The leaner operations and refocused strategic direction might help them recover better when the economy improves. While our global panel picked Vodafone to have the strongest recovery, our European panel picked Telefonica to emerge stronger.

When will mobile commerce be greater than ecommerce?

A majority of the panel thinks that mobile commerce will eclipse ecommerce in revenues generated by 2015 in North America and Asia and by 2020 for the rest of the world. There are already strong signs that commerce is shifting from online to mobile.

The company bringing the most successful mobile gadget of the year - 2012 and 2013?

Apple continues to produce the most desirable devices. iPhone and iPad dwarf everything else and easily was the company with the most successful gadget in 2012. However, the panel expects Samsung to best its rival in 2013. Google and Amazon might mount a credible challenge but their chances of producing something truly dominating remain low.

Which platform has a credible shot at becoming a viable and durable 3rd ecosystem in mobile?

Windows 8 phones finally launched in 2012. The design is solid, the OEM support is growing, the number of apps are rising and while it is still a long ways to becoming a credible 3^rd ecosystem, it has the best shot at becoming one. The only rival seems the HTML5-based OS initiatives. The application developer community actually voted for HTML5 over Windows as the 3^rd ecosystem that has some chance of competing with iOS and Android which completely dominate in revenues and unit sales respectively.

Mobile company of the year - 2012 and 2013?

Samsung eclipsed Nokia and Apple to become the most dominating device player in unit volume in almost all major markets. The speed with which it is churning out devices has pretty much crushed the rest of the Android ecosystem and is going head-to-head with Apple. For this performance, the panel voted Samsung to be the mobile company of the year for both 2012 and 2013 with Apple and Google close behind.

Which of the following are likely to happen in 2013?

The rumor chamber is ablaze with the possibilities of Apple TV, smartphones from Amazon and Microsoft, and data-only plans to make their appearance in 2013. Square and Twitter could be the hot acquisitions of the year though Twitter is likely to chose IPO glory. Will Samsung fork Android? Will Sprint and T-Mobile merge? Will European operators get acquired? These are some of the questions that are likely to keep the media on their toes this year.

Which operator is best positioned for the digital world?

As we outlined in our research paper “Operator’s Dilemma: The Fourth Wave,” the business of being a mobile operator is at a critical juncture and operators are investing heavily into creating the digital business. AT&T, Verizon, NTT DoCoMo, Softbank, and Telefonica are already generating billions of dollars from these initiatives and lead the operator contingent in the digital world.

Who was and will be the mobile person of the year?

In the past, Steve Jobs was consistently the person of the year in mobile. In 2012, Tim Cook effectively managed to produce record profits for the investors and navigated Apple to keep its “most valuable enterprise” title intact for the year. Apple is still the company on top of the hill. JK Shin of Samsung was voted number two for 2012. For 2013, the landscape changed. Our panel overwhelmingly voted Jeff Bezos to impress us the most in 2013. Amazon has done a good job disrupting the device model and with its strong commerce expertise, it is looking to take on both Google and Apple at the same time. Andy Rubin of Google with the 1 billion Android units milestone coming up this year will be a good contender for the title as well.

There were several other leaders who impressed in 2012 e.g. Paul Jacobs (eclipsing Intel in market cap), Jack Dorsey (disrupting the mobile payments market with Square), Masayoshi Son (for Sprint acquisition and global ambitions), Dan Hesse (for navigating Sprint through rough waters), Glenn Lurie and Matthew Key (for leading the digital transformation of the two giants – AT&T and Telefonica respectively), Rhen Zhengfei (for making Huawei into a dominating infrastructure provider), Lowell McAdam (for making Verizon the number 1 mobile data operator in the world) and Ralph de la Vega (for making AT&T the number 2 ahead of NTT DoCoMo).

All in all, a great collection of thoughts and comments. Thanks again to everyone who participated. Have a great 2013.

Mobile Future Forward 2012 Update - Connected Universe. Monetizing Opportunities. June 25, 2012

Posted by chetan in : AORTA, Applications, European Wireless Market, Mobile Cloud Computing, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Future Forward, Mobile OEMs, Mobile Operators, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

Greetings,

Hope all’s well. Just a quick update on how the program is shaping up.

We have been working steadily on our fall mobile executive summit – Mobile Future Forward (Sept 10th in Seattle) and I am very pleased to announce the preliminary program. We will provide an update as we continue to refine the program and announce more speakers. As you know, our programs are deep in content and high on participant caliber. Each year we strive to bring together some of the leading thinkers and doers from around the world to brainstorm the future of mobile. As we like to call it – it is a mobile boot camp with the brightest brains in mobile.

I am delighted to be partnering with some of the leading players in the mobile ecosystem: Intel, Ericsson, Synchronoss, and Tekelec.

Steve Elfman, President, Sprint will give us an update on the state of the wireless industry – the opportunities and the investment areas. Glenn Lurie, President, Emerging Enterprises and Partnerships at AT&T Mobility will provide us with a glimpse into the world of emerging devices and opportunities. Both Steve and Glenn are mobile industry veterans with decades of experience and their perspective will be invaluable for our Mobile Future Forward community.

Mobile commerce has been a hot topic lately. We have two terrific speakers – Mung Ki Woo, Head of Mobile at Mastercard Worldwide and Antonio Benjamin, Global CTO at Citi to lay the roadmap of the mobile commerce ecosystem evolution.

When it comes to retail, brands, and technology, there are not many people with deeper insights than Stephen David, former CIO of Procter & Gamble. He is a highly sought-after advisor to global brands around the world. I have had the good fortune to work with him in the past and his grasp on how wireless is going to disrupt retail is just brilliant. We are delighted to have him back to have a conversation about mobile, brands, retail, and IT.

As you can see below, we have an outstanding group of executives who are responsible for changing the industry every day. Their viewpoints and commentary will be invaluable. The Mobile Future Forward team, our esteemed partners, our fantastic speakers and our engaged community are really looking forward to Sept 10^th.

Confirmed Speakers

· Steve Elfman, President, Sprint

· Glenn Lurie, President, AT&T

· Renee James, SVP, Software and Services Group, Intel

· Wim Sweldens, President, Alcatel-Lucent Wireless

· Michael Bayle, SVP and GM, ESPN Mobile

· Martin Fichter, President, HTC

· Stephen Bye, CTO, Sprint

· Bobby Morrison, President, Verizon Wireless

· Erik Moreno, EVP, Fox

· Stephen David, former CIO, Procter & Gamble

· Ed Cantwell, SVP, West Wireless Health Institute

· Jana Messerschmidt, VP, Twitter

.. More to come

· Mung Ki Woo, Head of Mobile, Mastercard Worldwide

· Antonio Benjamin, Global CTO, Citi

· Biju Nair, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer, Synchronoss

· Hank Skorny, VP/GM, Intel

· Jack Kennedy, EVP, News Corp Digital Media

· Marianne Marck, VP – Engineering, Starbucks

· Tim Chang, Partner, Mayfield

· Vish Nandlall, CTO and EVP, Ericsson

· Carlos Domingo, President and CEO, Telefonica R&D

· Kevin Packingham, SVP – Product Innovation, Samsung

· Frank Meehan, Executive, Horizons Ventures

· Oke Okaro, Global Head of Mobile, Bloomberg

Discussion Topics

· Looking back from Mobile 2020 – the last 10 years

· The fight for developers – Apps, APIs, and Dollars

· Will Privacy get in the way of mobile growth?

· PostPC era and the tablets – commerce, engagement, and consumption

· Quantified Self. Quantified Enterprise – how to benefit from big data?

· Gamification of Everything – How to reinvent business models and revenue streams

· When will Mobile Commerce eclipse Ecommerce? And How?

· Mobile Broadband – LTE is here and now. What’s Next?

· Mobile Competitive Policy – Balancing competitiveness, consumer interests, policy, and innovation

· nScreen Connected Consumer – Expectations, Solution roadmap, and Revenue flows

· Operators vs. OTT – Competition, Co-opetition, and the new landscape. Measuring the seismic shifts.

· Big (Mobile) Data – Collection, Management and Use of Data

· Mobile Cloud Computing – Innovation, Competition, and Business Models

· Mobile CIO Prism – Disruption in the enterprise. Opportunities for growth and cost reductions

· Managing networking growth in the Yottabyte Era – strategies to tame signaling and data tsunamis

· Mobile Platforms and Ecosystems – The Cycles and the Eternal Debate

· Mobile Security – BYOD, Hacking, Protecting, and Monetization

· Emerging Markets, Emerging Opportunities

· Battle for the Home – Devices, Apps, Networks

· Retail channel transformation – how are we going to shop and who makes money?

I hope you will join us in what is shaping up to be an exceptional gathering of the mobile minds. Registration is open now. Early bird will expire July 10^th. The last two events were sold out so be sure to grab your seat to one of the most anticipated mobile gathering of the year.

Thanks.

Kind regards,

Chetan Sharma

Mobile Breakfast Series Recap – Atlanta – Connected Devices, Cloud, and Consumer June 24, 2012

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, Applications, Connected Devices, European Wireless Market, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Breakfast Series, Mobile Cloud Computing, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Content, Mobile Devices, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Future Forward, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 2 comments

We started doing Mobile Breakfast Series in Seattle back in 2009 and after hosting10 straight events, it was time to expand the wings and explore other cities. The first stop in this journey was Atlanta and we worked closely with our partners at “Wireless Technology Forum” to make it a successful event last friday. I also had the good fortune of participating in WTF’s event the night before. Both events focused on Connected Devices and their impact on the consumer, the ecosystem and the value-chains thus making it a “connected week” in Atlanta.

As I mentioned, the night before the event, I had the opportunity to present and moderate a panel on Connected Devices with Glenn Lurie, President of Emerging Enterprises at AT&T and Jeff Smith, CTO at Numerex. Both are movers and shakers in the space and it was such a pleasure meeting with many WTF members and interacting with the top-notch panelists. The event was recorded and is available on WTF’s Youtube Channel.

We hosted the Atlanta Mobile Breakfast Series Event in Atlanta at the Commerce Club of Atlanta which has beautiful views of the Atlanta area.

There is an old Chinese saying, “When the wind of change blows, some build walls others build windmills.” Our industry is going through tremendous change; it won’t be an exaggeration if I say that the tectonic plates are moving and moving fast. The motion is being forced both by the economic conditions but also the technology and business progress. I have been around the industry long enough but it still amazes me – the stuff that’s in the pipeline and how quickly consumers absorb it.

The topic of our discussion was Connected Devices, the Cloud, and the Consumer. With connected devices, I am referring to the broad availability of devices that are connected to data networks – so they include smartphones, tablets, connected auto but also wellness devices like fitbit, energy meters, dog collars, medical devices, etc. as of last year, the subscription penetration was at 6B, next year, we will have more connections than people on this planet. In another 5-7 years, we might touch 20 Billion sensors on the planet. So you can see the growth is going to be astronomical.

Another phenomenon is that of cloud. If a startup mentions Cloud in their presentation to a VC, the valuation doubles, you say mobile, and it quadruples. I don’t know how many of you are a fan of Mark Weisier, the Xerox Parc researcher who pioneered what became “always on, always connected” tagline of pervasive computing. It was more than 20 years ago, we finally are seeing that with the help of broadband networks, amazing devices, and open business models, information is truly available at the fingertips.

The third leg of our discussion was the consumer – their appetite for new and the latest is creating this tremendous opportunity that is shaping their behavior and expectations.

We had an awesome panel to discuss things in detail. First I discussed the topic with David Christopher, Chief Marketing Officer at AT&T Mobility. As most of you might be aware, AT&T is leading not only the US but the globe in their efforts to bring connected solutions to the market. I work around the world with top operators, and I can tell you there is no exciting place in mobile right now than right here in the US of A. US is leading in innovation, technology, and business model. We had lost touch after 1G and US truly teaching rest of the world how to do 4G right. David has a terrific background – a product and operationally driven CMO at one of the world’s biggest mobile operator and it was a delight to have him on the panel.

I have known both Biju Nair and Louis Gump for sometime – several decades of mobile expertise. Louis is with CNN, has been running their mobile efforts which are top-notch. He is a recognized leader in the mobile advertising space and given that CNN’s properties span across multiple screens, he has really great insights as to how consumers behave across n-screens.

Biju is a hard core technologist, has been working at solutions that make Louis’ stuff work across networks and devices. Many of you might not know but Synchronoss where Biju is the Chief Strategy Officer and Products EVP, powers online activation at AT&T. If you bought the iPhone over the last few years at AT&T, there is a good chance your order was processed by Synchronoss.

Highlights from the discussion below:

Many in the industry expected AT&T to take a hit after the iPhone exclusivity ended but AT&T continued to perform better than Verizon and others with devices. David has been the person leading the charge to ensure AT&T maintains its competitiveness. AT&T did that by a) conveying the overall value proposition of an iPhone on the AT&T network b) build out the Android portfolio and c) conveying crisply the benefits of being an iPhone on the AT&T network (talk and text at the same time, etc.)
Consumers understand that 4G is faster than 3G but necessarily understand (beyond the techie crowd) the benefits of LTE.
AT&T is a big supporter of Windows ecosystem. It is good to have more choice for the consumers. While the initial version of Surface is WiFi only, the hope are high for Windows 8. Having a viable third ecosystem for mobile is important for the mobile industry.
Microsoft has done a good job with the design of the OS but have been poor on the opening up of the API front. Developers find the closed ecosystem to be stifling. Unless Microsoft remedies that, interest in the platform might be limited.
It is RIM’s battle to lose. They have good software, loyal users, security framework, email is the best but have been asleep on the wheel for a while. They can turn things around though the probability of that happening are fairly low at this point.
AT&T is studying data share plans and how consumers might react to them. It is a new paradigm in the evolution of mobile data plans and services.
CNN has been doing mobile for a long time but was surprised by the pick up of the tablets. The reach is highest on the browser for them but the engagement is much higher on apps.
Cloud is essentially Client-Server from the years past but applied to new use cases that brings together user experience new and different ways. The trifecta of devices, broadband networks, and content is enabling new services.
Privacy and Security of cloud services is of paramount importance. There is a view that the industry needs to self-regulate and come up with some better solutions quickly.
HTML5 is an important step for the industry but it is clearly not a panacea. It will have a role in the ecosystem but won’t obliterate the need for apps. The holy wars to continue.
There is some conflict between the cloud data usage and data tier plans but WiFi (US consumers have access to WiFi 80% of the time) and smarter configuration to manage data have helped.
Mobile advertising only 1% of the overall mix but mobile has 10% usage so a tremendous growth opportunity (yep, we said that back in 2007).
APIs are open but monetization is still challenging. The first task is to get developers understand the benefits and find ways to enhance the user experience.
Toll free data plans is not a new concept. Remember Sugar Mama from Virgin Mobile from years ago? Still experimental. Content providers like CNN are willing to engage if there is some value exchange that yields to revenue which can be shared. Some interesting opportunities with prepaid.
To some extent there is more ARPU innovation in the developing countries like India which are borne out of necessity – like the Kissan program in India.
In terms of what’s next, virtually every industry is going to be disrupted. Tremendous change on the horizon however a lot will depend on the battery innovation in the coming days and months.

The team at Chetan Sharma Consulting really enjoyed taking the Breakfast Series to Atlanta. My thanks to the terrific team at WTF for their support and to the Atlanta Mobile Community for making the event so successful. Finally, the event wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our series partner – Synchronoss.

As you might be aware, our fall mobile executive summit – Mobile Future Forward is going to be on Sept 10th. Registration is open. We are likely to sell out so grab your tickets early.

Next Stop – London for our first venture across the pond. On June 29th, we host the discussion on Operator/OTT – The way forward with Telefonica, Orange, Rebtel, and Horizons Ventures. Read Frank Meehan’s pre-event interview about the topic here.

Operators and OTT - The Way Forward - London

Operator traditional revenue streams are under threat esp. voice and messaging. Access margins will continue to stay under pressure. OTT players are coming in fast and furious and it is not just the big ones like Google but also players like Whatsapp, Voxer, Viber and others. How do operators play in the new landscape – lessen the decline of their traditional revenues while investing in new areas that improve their overall margins and revenues. Do they play the role of an enabler, a utility player, or become the OTT player themselves? In a software-driven world, how do they stay nimble? On the flip side, what are some things that operators can provide to the OTT players that make them successful, take them to the market quickly and maintain a long-term healthy and mutually-beneficial partnership? Operators still generate 70% of the global mobile industry revenues, so they are an important part of the chain but how do they ensure they have an equally relevant share in the profits. The panel will discuss how operators and OTT players think about the challenges and the opportunities, the competition and the coopetition.

CTIA Wireless 2012 Recap May 14, 2012

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, CTIA, Carriers, European Wireless Market, Infrastructure Providers, Mobile Breakfast Series, Mobile Future Forward, Mobile Operators, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

CTIA Wireless 2012 Recap

http://www.chetansharma.com/ctiawireless2012.htm

CTIA returned to New Orleans after many years and it was great to see the city revitalized and ready to host the wireless show. Overall there were no big announcements, no blockbuster deals, no zingers from speakers that made the headlines. However, it was good to take the pulse of the industry. We met with several prominent industry executives, long-time colleagues, and new entrepreneurs. This note presents the summary of my observations from the show.

Mobile Web and Apps – I had the opportunity to chair the Mobile Web and Apps event and kick off the proceedings with an opening keynote on the State of the Mobile Industry. It was based on our recent global market update that we released last week. In fact, many CEOs and speakers including FCC Chairman Genachowski frequently referenced from the research throughout the show. Wireless Week did a nice cover story based on the talk. There was good discussion and debate about what’s working and what’s not, how developers try to create demand and monetize eyeballs, the issues of security and privacy. Mastercard announced its payment developer APIs program. In fact, the show had the presence of all the major credit card companies. Payments, wallet, and commerce were the big talking point.

Operators vs. OTT – The theme of Mobile World Congress continued at CTIA with the topic dominating in both open forums as well as behind closed doors. While most of the ink has been focused on how OTT players are killing operator revenue streams, there is the untold story of operator collaboration with the OTTs. I wrote a piece on the topic for Synergy magazine “Mobile Operators and OTTs: Building a win-win.” The manner in which operators respond to the OTT opportunity/threat will end up defining their future in the years to come. Some operators like TeliaSonera have reacted by throwing their hands and just charging extra for OTT services while others like Telefonica are launching innovative services. We have looked at this topic in-depth for many years and have some more new research coming out in the next few weeks. Stay tuned.

The challenge for some of the operators is in stark display. While T-Mobile’s Bobsled app garnered (95% users non-TMO customers) 1 million users, Viber announced the 70 million milestone. To be a relevant app, one needs scale. Operators have the advantage of providing better call quality. The call quality on many mobile VoIP services is subpar and enterprise customers (and consumers) will pay a premium for better call quality.

Digital Life and New Revenue Streams – In the US, AT&T dominates the connected devices spaces. Indeed in terms of rolling out new services, it is a step ahead of the competition. AT&T has been showing the Digital Life concepts at Mobile World Congress and at CTIA they announced the trial and actual product availability in 2013. This clearly bodes well for the industry for there are many adjacent industries where operators can play an important role. Other operators should pay close attention. We will be discussing the Connected Devices opportunities in detail at our Atlanta Mobile Breakfast Series Event on June 22^nd with AT&T, Synchronoss, and CNN.

Traffic Growth and Signaling storm – As we have mentioned in our various research papers and research updates, mobile traffic is roughly doubling YOY in most major markets including the US. While data traffic hogs the headlines, signaling is becoming a menace to network management esp. Android which tends to be more inefficient in handling network resources. We will have a more in-depth discussion of these topics in our upcoming Yottabyte research paper.

TMO Acquisition – Last year, AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile rocked the industry and kept the regulators busy for better part of 2011. While there were no blockbuster announcements, T-Mobile’s acquisition of MetroPCS along with Nokia and RIM’s long-term prospects remained popular water cooler topics.

Nokia’s revival – Nokia has a lot to prove. Its future is riding on the success of the Lumia series of devices in 2012. Though it hasn’t exactly set things on fire, the sales are actually doing fine. It is amongst the top selling devices at AT&T and is showing stickiness. However, Nokia is getting crushed in other markets, so the net impact on overall cash position can be significant if it is not able to arrest the downfall in the next 3-4 quarters.

Small Cells – A couple of years ago, small cells and HetNets were just talking point. Now, operators are weaving them into their execution plans as they lay out their 4G networks. Given that mobile data growth is going to stay front and center for the foreseeable future, expect to hear about small cells and HetNets for some time to come.

TMO $4B network deal – Generally, the network deals of this size takes many quarters to iron out. T-Mobile moved fairly quickly to iron out its LTE rollout plans and its vendors. Not surprisingly, the spoils of the deal went to Ericsson and NSN. In light of the collapse of LightSquared, this deal might provide NSN a lifeline to continue operations for a few more years.

Mobile Wallets and Mobile Payments – While 2012 will not be the year of mobile payments; it certainly is the year of mobile wallets launches and lots of them. Every financial institution worthy of its salt has launched a wallet. We are just going through the early turbulence cycle of this new segment. However, the opening up of the payment APIs from the financial industry is leading to some compelling experiences and use cases.

NFC was absent – The talk of NFC as a payment solution was noticeably muted. We have always said that NFC will have more impact from other solutions than payment.

Verizon – LTE – Competing on LTE, the fight to build the fastest and biggest LTE network is on. Verizon has an early formidable lead but in 2013 rivals will start to catch-up.

Messaging innovation – As I mentioned to the NY Times and discussed it in our annual global mobile update, messaging revenue has started to decline in some countries. Some operators in Europe are in a state of panic. Chaos creates new opportunities. While operators have just given up on fighting the OTT war, others are gearing with new apps and services of their own (TU Me from Telefonica, Bobsled from T-Mobile, On from Orange). Several startups are also helping the operators innovate on the messaging front. SMS was invented in the early nineties but operators didn’t really take messaging to the next level for the last two decades. I met with a number of companies which are doing some interesting work on the messaging side – like ZipWhip, Maxx Wireless, OpenMarket, and others. Some of these companies are still in the stealth mode and expect to make some waves in the coming months. We will be taking this topic head-on in our Mobile Breakfast Series in Seattle (w/ AT&T, Groupon) and London (w/ Telefonica, Orange, Horizons Venture, Rebtel)

Sprint Guardian, and other apps – in line with generating more revenue form other apps, Sprint guardian was launched with Safely and the service is seeing pretty good traction in the early days and might be able to increase the lifetime value of the customer. Other US operators have similar services available on their network as well. Operators will have to invest heavily in VAS ecosystem and services to arrest the declining revenue in other segments.

FCC, Spectrum and Regulations – FCC continued to make its case for more spectrum via incentive auction. With a change of guard expected next year, it will be interesting to see how some of these efforts pan out. FCC should create parallel incentive programs like a $1B prize for tangibly solving the spectrum crisis w/o the need of new spectrum.

Absence of large players – The lack of any major announcements was only rivaled by the absence of the former CTIA heavyweights like Samsung, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia, Motorola, and Microsoft. Others had fairly low-key presence.

Regulations – Regulations lag the technology industry progress and it is getting to the point that they might end up hindering growth esp. related to communication, privacy and monetization of network assets. It is time to consider bringing all communication, and data privacy rules under the same umbrella so both the telecom and Internet players are guided by the same set of principles.

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

We will be keeping a close eye on the trends in the wireless data sector in our blog, twitter feeds, future research reports, and articles. The next US Wireless Data Market update will be released in May 2012. The next Global Wireless Data Market update will be issued in Nov 2012.

Disclaimer: Some of the companies mentioned in this paper are our clients.

Global Mobile Market Update 2012 (Annual Edition) April 30, 2012

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, BRIC, European Wireless Market, Indian Wireless Market, Japan Wireless Market, Mobile Breakfast Series, Mobile Future Forward, Mobile Operators, Mobile Patents, Mobile Payments, Patent Strategy, US Wireless Market, VoIP, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 6 comments

http://www.chetansharma.com/GlobalMobileMarketUpdate2012.htm

Global Mobile Market Update

State of the Global Mobile Union - 2012

Total Global Mobile Revenues to hit $1.5 Trillion in 2012, over 2% of Global GDP

– Top 10 operators control 42% of the global data mobile revenues

Mobile Services Revenue exceeded $1 Trillion for the first time in 2011

– The number of mobile operators with > $1 Billion in yearly data revenues will touch 50 in 2012

Total Global Mobile Data Revenues went past $300 Billion in 2011

– Non-messaging data now owns 53% of the global mobile data revenues

Mobile Operator Profits have more than doubled over the last 10 years.

– However, the wealth is not divided evenly. Asia’s share has tripled at the expense of Europe whose profit share has declined by 50%

Total Global Subscriptions to exceed 7 Billion in early 2013

– China exceeds 1 Billion, India 950 Million. Subscriber growth is in Asia, Revenue growth is in Asia+North America

China and India represent 27% of subscriptions but only 12% of the global service revenues

– US represents only 6% of the subscriptions but 21% of the global service revenues, 26% of the data revenues, and 27% of the global CAPEX

Mobile Devices are now exceeding traditional computers in unit sales + revenue

– 70% of the device sales in the US are now smartphones. Device Replacement cycle is shrinking

Samsung and Apple now account for 50% of the smartphone unit share and 90% of the profit share

– Difficult environment for other OEMs esp. when ZTE and Huawei are coming strong from the bottom. It will be difficult for pure play device OEMs to survive long-term

Tablets (iPads) has created a new computing paradigm that is having a significant impact on commerce, content consumption, and developer investments

– Apple will continue to dominate the segment and iOS will be the leading OS for the segment. Amazon, ZTE, Huawei, to chip away at the sub-$200 tier.

Mobile Broadband (4G) is being deployed at a faster rate than previous generations, first time data is leading the charge

– Over 1.5 Billion broadband connections by 2012

Global Mobile Apps revenue has completely (and irreversibly) tilted to off-deck

– The decline is directly proportional to the increase in smartphone penetration by region

All major markets are consolidating with the top 3 players at 85% of the market

– Regulators will have to be more prudent and proactive about managing competitiveness and growth

Mobile data traffic 2x YOY in most markets. Mobile Data will be 95% of the global mobile traffic by 2015

– Many countries are facing spectrum exhaust in the next 2-3 years (in certain markets)

Mobile Signaling takes up 2x the resources as Mobile Data Traffic

– Signaling traffic is growing faster than the data traffic on broadband networks

Connected device segment is growing at the fastest pace in the western markets

– Operators will have to quickly adapt their strategies to stay relevant in this segment

Several multi-billion dollar opportunity segments are emerging

– Mobile Advertising, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Wellness, Mobile Games, and Mobile Cloud Computing to name a few

Mobile Ecosystem has become very dynamic and unpredictable

– The 5 Platform Amigos – Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook dominate though the first two have the real power

Mobile Operator Revenue is under pressure from OTT Players

– OTT Share of the Global Mobile Revenues increased to 4%

OTT players forcing operators to up their game

– Operators are partnering, launching their own OTT apps, increasing tariffs to manage the margins

Intellectual Property has become a key component of long-term product strategy

– 21% of all patents granted in US are mobile related. Top 20 control 1/3^rd of the overall mobile patent pool

Mobile Patent Rankings: US – IBM, Microsoft, Nokia. Europe – Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia, Samsung. Overall – Nokia, Samsung, Alcatel-Lucent

– OEMs – Nokia, Samsung, Sony. Service Providers – AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, Sprint

In 3-5 years, with few exceptions, if a company is not doing majority of its digital business on mobile, it is going to be irrelevant

– Majority (by a good margin) of the consumer interactions with brands will be on mobile

Mobile has become the single most important digital channel for engaging consumers and it shows

– In the US, mobile revenues were > all Ecommerce And > Music, ISP, Hollywood, and Cable revenues combined

We have entered the mobile 3.0 era where “data” is all that matters and it disrupts the value chains

– Data will drive majority of the network growth, Contextual data will drive majority of the VAS growth

There will be more changes in the next 10 years than in the previous 100

– The value chains will keep disrupting every 12-18 months by the new players and business models. Several verticals are already getting redefined e.g. retail, health, education, etc.

The Big Picture

The global mobile industry is the most vibrant and fastest growing industry. We expect the total revenue in the industry to touch approximately $1.5 Trillion in 2012 with mobile data representing 28% of the mix. Mobile data services revenue stood at 33%. Global Mobile Data revenues eclipsed $300 Billion for the first time in 2011. It is also the first year in which non-messaging data revenues will make up the majority of the overall global data revenues at 53%.

By the end of 2011, the global subscriptions exceeded 6 Billion. The first 1 billion took over 20 years and this last one took only 15 months. The primary growth drivers are India and China which are cumulatively adding 75M new subs every quarter. China became the first country to eclipse the 1 billion mark in March 2012. India is likely to arrive at the milestone by early 2013.

Smartphones are driving tremendous growth around the globe. Amongst the major markets, US leads with 69% sales. The global figure stands at approximately 32%. Some operators expect 90-95% of their device sales to be smartphones in 2012. In terms of the actual smartphone penetration, we expect the US market to eclipse the 50% mark in 2012.

China leads in the number of subs but US dominates in both total and data revenue. A number of emerging nations are now in top 10 – Brazil, India, Russia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Mexico while once dominant – Korea, UK, Italy, Germany have dropped off or slipped in rankings.

Global Mobile Data Growth

Japan continues to be the leader in mobile data with NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, and Softbank Japan ahead of the pack in terms of mobile data revenue and data as a % of total ARPU. Country average is now at 60%.

Next, Australia and the US have made good inroads in the last two years. In fact, if we look at the overall data revenue, US is much further ahead than any other nation due to the size of the market.

While India has the highest subscriber growth rate in the world right now, the revenue generating opportunity remain down right anemic compared to other major markets with average dropping down to $2.50 in overall ARPU. Even with significant subscriber base, there is going to be a general lack of opportunity in the market for the next couple of years relative to other markets.

Devices – Changing Landscape

Apple has had the tablet space to itself. Thus far the response from the competitors has been tepid esp. on the pricing dimension. Apple has had such a mastery over the supply-chain and months ahead of the competition that by the time they figure out details, Apple already locks up the pricing advantage for the cycle. OEMs try to catch-up on the features but can’t do on the margins. OEMs can grow the pie by bringing products at a better price points that helps attract different demographics to the mix. Microsoft can make good inroads into the space with its Win8 tablet release in 2012 but it will be again in a catch-up mode as the iOS ecosystem will be even more robust by then. The cheaper Android tablets will do well in the market. As expected, tablets will pretty much eliminate the need for netbooks and are starting to eat into the desktop/laptop revenue.

Apple and Samsung are strong on the top. Huawei and ZTE are coming up strong from the bottom. The middle tier players will have a tough time going forward.

It will be difficult for pureplay device OEMs to survive long-term.

Nokia and RIM are under severe market scrutiny as investors and developers leave in droves. Lack of product planning and execution has left their market share in disarray. Nokia’s valuation has been cut into half. Nokia’s release of N9 shows the engineering and creative design depth but a lot is riding on the first generation of Nokia Windows Phones (Lumia). While the market hasn’t shown much appetite for Windows phone thus far, a good family of devices might be able to slow the loss trajectory and position the combined team for the up-for-grabs 3^rd spot in the ecosystem. Given that the computing is shifting to mobile devices, we can expect some of the weaker desktop/laptop players will exit the industry.

Majority of the tablet use is in the WiFi mode because the primary use case is indoors and WiFi gives a better (and cheaper) user experience. However, of the users who use cellular, the churn is low. Once operators start to roll out user-friendly family data plans across multiple devices, we can expect the cellular activation go higher (e.g. Rogers, Vodafone Spain) but will still be dominated by WiFi overall.

Mobile VAS and OTT – The Big Picture

• The traditional operator revenue streams of

– Voice – declining and under threat from VoIP

– Messaging – flattening/declining and under threat from IP messaging

– Access – rising but margins are shrinking fast

– VAS – declining in proportion to the growth of smartphones

• Operators are fighting back with

– Voice – launching their own VoIP apps e.g. Bobsled from T-Mobile, partnering with VoIP players e.g. Skype integration, charging for VoIP apps e.g. TeliaSonera €6/month

– Messaging – launching their own IP messaging apps e.g. Huddle from AT&T, partnering with IP messaging players e.g. Whatsapp partnership

– Access – Tiering

– VAS – launch their own VAS apps and industry vertical apps and services

Managing Mobile Data Traffic and Profits

As a result of the data tsunami, there are two types of opportunities that are being created, one that take advantage of the data being generated in a way that enhances the user experience and provides value and the other in technologies that help manage the traffic data that will continue to grow exponentially.

To be able to stay ahead of the demand, significant planning needs to go in to deal with the bits and bytes that are already exploding. New technical and business solutions will be needed to manage the growth and profit from the services. Relying on only one solution won’t be an effective strategy to manage rising data demand. A holistic approach to managing data traffic is needed and our analysis shows that the cost structure can be reduced by more than half if a suite of solutions are deployed vs. a single dimensional approach and thus bringing the hockey stick curves of data cost more in line with the revenues and thus preserving the margins.

The decision making process within the operator organizations will need to be streamlined as well. Operators should also consider creating a senior post which focuses on both the cost side and the solution side so they can devise and institute a sustainable long-term policy and keep the margins healthy.

Mobile Intellectual Property

• The IP tussles are playing out as expected

• Players with strong IP portfolios will be able to command better negotiating positions, new revenue streams, competitive positioning over the long-term

• On average mobile companies file patents 1.7 times more in the US vs. Europe

• Mobile Patent Leaders in US: IBM, Microsoft, Nokia

• Mobile Patent Leaders in Europe: Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia, Samsung

• Mobile Patent Leaders in Infrastructure: Samsung, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson

• Mobile Patent Leaders in Devices: Nokia, Samsung, Sony

• Mobile Patent Leaders in Service Providers: AT&T, NTT DoCoMo, Sprint

• Top 20 control 1/3^rd of the total mobile communications patent pool

Mobile Competitive Dynamics

The Rule of Three is evident in all major markets. While the percentage market share might vary, on an average, the top 3 control 93% of the market in an given nation. It doesn’t matter if the market is defined by “controlled regulation” like in China, Korea, and Japan or if it is “open market” driven in markets such as the US, UK, and India. Eventually, only top 3 operators control the majority of the market. There are niches that others occupy but they are largely irrelevant to the overall structure and functioning of the mobile market.

Markets such as US and India experienced similar competitive environment in their hyper-growth phase. For the US, this phase was in the nineties-mid-2000s while India has been experiencing the similar environment in the last 3-4 years. In both cases, at the start there are 5-6 players with no more than 25% market share but higher than 10% of the mix but gradually the market forces enable consolidation. Over a period of 18 years, US is settling into a “top 3” operator market. India’s brutal price wars are going to trigger the consolidation in the next 12-24 months and will eventually settle into a structure similar to other markets.

The competitive equilibrium point in the mobile industry seems to when the market shares of the top 3 are 46%:29%:18% respectively with the remaining 7% being allocated to the niche operators. To achieve some semblance of equilibrium in the market the top operator shouldn’t have more than 50% of the market share and the number three player shouldn’t have less than 20%. This helps create enough balance in the market to derive maximum value for the consumer.

Mobile operators will face some hard choices in developing and protecting the role they want to play in a given region and the ecosystem at-large. The strategy they choose will have a direct impact on the expected EBITDA margins, investment required over the long-haul, how investors view them, and on the competitive landscape of the country. Given, the fast pace of globalization, new rules and trends might emerge over the course of this decade that further define “communications” and “computing” as we know.

Key Industry Micro-Milestones

Apple captures 70% of mobile device profits – defies gravity, obliterates competition
Apple mobile appstore downloads exceed 25 Billion, 100 Million on Mac – can you spell domination
Samsung ends Nokia’s 14 year reign as the device king – brutal execution
Android 300M activations – Juggernaut
Paypal does $7B in mobile transaction volume
Square does $5B in commerce transaction volume
Google > $5B in mobile revenues
Microsoft revenues from Android > Windows Mobile
Pandora’s 70% usage is on mobile, Twitter’s 60% of the usage is on mobile – heading towards a mobile-dominant world
Facebook Instagram Acquisition $1B – Mobile only acquisition to beef up mobile strategy
Angry Birds approaches a billion downloads
ESPN does 3.1 billion minutes on mobile in 3/12 – Mobile is where the action is
Skype traffic over 150 billion minutes – OTT pressure
KPN messaging volumes decline 15% YOY – OTT pressure
Mobile Security threats grow 7x in last two years, Android threats up 3000% – Mobile IS IT
Cisco BYOD ratio – 70% (up 52% in 2011) - BYOD is creating new opportunities for vendors
US data traffic over 130 quadrillion bytes/month in 2011 – Data traffic 2X YOY, welcome to the yottabyte era
Fandango sells quarter of its ticket on mobile – commerce is happening
Expedia does > $1B in mobile commerce – see above
Microsoft Nokia Multi-Billion partnership – It takes two to tango
Lightsquared fails – Keep your friends close, enemies closer
Google Motorola $12.5B – IP becomes key to strategy
Nortel Patent acquisition $4.5B – IP becomes key to strategy
AT&T/T-Mobile Failure – DOJ/FCC put down the gavel
40% of Kenya’s GDP comes from mobile money – impact of mobile is pervasive
Millennial Media IPO at $2B – first public market validation of the mobile advertising space
HP gives up on Palm – Competition forces Corporate Schizophrenia

What to expect in 2H 2012

• More Tiering, faster pace of change of plans. More options, family data plans

• Cost reduction is as important as revenue generation. More players will align their value-chains and cost structures

• Facebook IPO is probably going to be the single biggest event in the technology industry in the next few months.

• Radios will start connecting the digital world with the physical world with significant disruption opportunity

• Mobile Payment Networks will remain intact for the near future as the ecosystem largely focuses on building value on top of the existing exchange platforms

• The intersection of Social, Location, Identity, and Gaming is creating new opportunities

• With connectivity becoming pervasive, mobile will fundamentally start to alter the legacy infrastructure – retail, health, education, energy, computing, travel, entertainment

• Significant tablet adoption in the enterprise directly impacting the traditional computer manufacturers

• Both HTML5 and Apps will continue to grow, the relevancy to any given application will depend on the reach and economics requirements. HTML5 is not going to replace Apps.

• Mobile data growth will double again in 2012. Significant opportunities in managed and understanding of mobile data growth

• Regulators will need to evolve to keep up with the trend to keep their nation globally competitive

• More IP scuffles before licensing settlements

• Consolidation of weaker players, more global M&A

• Significant progress in emerging areas like mHealth, mPayments will come from the developing world while the western countries get mired in regulatory and legacy mess

• Several players face challenging times ahead and 2012 will be critical in their turn around sojourn.

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

Disclaimer: Some of the companies mentioned in this paper are our clients.

Mobile Patents Landscape – An In-depth Quantitative Analysis April 17, 2012

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, European Wireless Market, Infrastructure Providers, Intellectual Property, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile OEMs, Mobile Operators, Mobile Patents, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

http://www.chetansharma.com/MobilePatentsLandscape.htm

Introduction

In April 2012, in its report on Intellectual Property, the US Patent Office (USPTO) concluded that the entire US economy relies on some form of IP, because virtually every industry either produces or uses it. The foreword of the report said,

“Innovation protected by IP rights is key to creating new jobs and growing exports. Innovation has a positive pervasive effect on the entire economy, and its benefits flow both upstream and downstream to every sector of the U.S. economy. Intellectual property is not just the final product of workers and companies—every job in some way, produces, supplies, consumes or relies on innovation, creativity, and commercial distinctiveness. Protecting our ideas and IP promotes innovative, open, and competitive markets, and helps ensure that the U.S. private sector remains America’s innovation engine.”

Intellectual property has been an integral part of the economic engine of the western world for many decades if not centuries. Over the past two decades, nations and corporations have competed on the creation, funding, execution, and protection of the new ideas. Increasingly, the role of mobile devices, networks, and applications has become an important component of the growth story worldwide.

To say that the mobile devices have become the remote control of our lives would be an understatement. Mobile phones stay attached to us almost 24 hours a day. From waking us up in the morning to keeping us connected and entertained, from speeding up a commerce transaction to being a trusted advisor; mobile is fundamentally changed how we as consumers behave and how societies and cultures evolve over time. As a result, there has been a big influx of investment and innovation over the last decade. This surge of activity has also translated into increased number of patent filings in the two major jurisdictions of US and Europe. Even the developing countries like China and India have seen a significant increase in patent activity in the country. In fact, in terms of filings, China’s share of the global patent grants has increased from 0.8% in 1996 to 15% in 2010 placing it third behind Japan and the US and well ahead of Korea and Europe.

According to the US Patent Office (USPTO), in 2011, the number of applications reached over 535,000 growing by almost 54% from a decade ago. Similarly, the number of patents granted grew 35% to 224,505 by the end of 2011. The numbers of foreign filings are now in the majority for both the applications filed as well as the patents granted. In Europe, similar trends were observed where the EPO (European Patent Office) patent grants increased by 46%.

The number of mobile related patents that were granted by the USPTO and the EPO increased significantly over the course of last decade. The US market saw a 390% increase while the European market saw a 173% increase in mobile related patent grants.

Another interesting fact is that as of Q1 2012, over 21% of the patents granted by the USPTO now are mobile related. This grew from around 2% in 1991 and 5% in 2011. In Europe, roughly 9% of the patents granted are related to mobile.

Chetan Sharma Consulting analyzed almost 7 million patents granted by the USPTO and EPO over the last two decades to understand how mobile has become a key enabler for all technology companies. Furthermore, we looked at patent granted to the top 65 technology companies who are active in the mobile space to understand their relative strengths and weaknesses in the mobile patent landscape. In a first of its kind study, the paper presents and discusses these findings in more detail.

Read the full paper

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

Disclaimer: Some of the companies mentioned in this paper are our clients.

Mobile Internet 3.0: How Operators Can Become Service Innovators and Drive Profitability February 23, 2012

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, ARPU, BRIC, Carriers, China, Connected Devices, Devices, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Mobile Cloud Computing, Mobile Health, Security, Smart Phones, US Wireless Market, Wi-Fi, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so far

Mobile Internet 3.0

How Operators Can Become Service Innovators and Drive Profitability

Sponsored by Juniper Networks

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The mobile ecosystem is going through significant shifts in consumer behavior, the value-chain alignment, and the strategies required in managing the profitability of the service business. Operators around the world are experiencing tremendous mobile data growth. While the mobile data revenues are increasing, the margins are decreasing for many operators. As the percentage of the smartphones on the network increases, the data business is primarily becoming an access business which is difficult to sustain over the long-haul.

Additionally, it is becoming clear that the long-term value will be in the portfolio of value-added services (VAS). As we slowly migrate into the Mobile Internet 3.0 world where mobile data becomes the primary source of service revenues, operators have a fundamental choice to make – either learn to live with the utility business that pushes the margins downwards by 30-50% or selectively compete and/or collaborate with the OTT (over the top) players where they can offer compelling solutions and packages to their customer base and beyond.

Operators who are fully able to grasp the changes occurring in the ecosystem and are willing to refocus will position themselves for higher profitability in the coming years.

A fundamental rethink of the network and the business models is required. Rather than leaving all the VAS business to others, operators should look at ways to launch new services, to micro-segmented consumer base, to enable APIs and services that the developer ecosystem can build on, and to look at the core network to enable incremental revenue streams.

The pace at which the new services are launched needs to accelerate and the marginal cost of the introduction needs to go down significantly. By architecting the “network as a platform,” operators will have more flexibility in deploying an open and programmable network that not only provides operational efficiencies and insights but also paves the way for new generation of services such as mobile cloud, mobile security, health care, and identity management.

The paper looks at the global trends in mobile data and the need for new approaches to operator services that can help increase the mobile data margins and help operators play a more decisive and enabling role in the mobile ecosystem. The paper provides an operator blueprint for succeeding in the Mobile Internet 3.0 era by discussing the operating principles and the long tail of VAS. Several strategies and application areas are analyzed that can help operators in building a viable VAS strategy and sustainable profit streams.

We will be keeping a close eye on the trends in the wireless data sector in our blog, twitter feeds, future research reports, and articles. The next US Wireless Data Market update will be released in Mar 2012. The next Global Wireless Data Market update will be issued in Apr 2012.

Disclaimer: Some of the companies mentioned in this paper are our clients.

2012 Mobile Industry Predictions Survey January 3, 2012

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, Applications, BRIC, CTIA, Carnival of Mobilists, Carriers, Connected Devices, Disruption, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, IP Strategy, Indian Wireless Market, Infrastructure, Intellectual Property, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, M&A, Mergers and Acquisitions, Messaging, Microsoft Mobile, Middleware, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Breakfast Series, Mobile Cloud Computing, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Future, Mobile Future Forward, Mobile Gaming, Mobile Payments, Mobile Search, Mobile Traffic, Networks, Patent Strategies, Privacy, Smart Phones, Speaking Engagements, Speech Recognition, US Wireless Market, Wi-Fi, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 12 comments

2012 Mobile Industry Predictions Survey

http://www.chetansharma.com/MobilePredictions2012.htm

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First things first. From all of us at Chetan Sharma Consulting, we wish you and yours a very happy, healthy, and prosperous 2012. My thanks to all who participated in our 2012 Mobile Predictions Annual Survey. It gives our community an insider’s view of trends.

2011 was a terrific year for the mobile industry. With all its ups and down, consumers embraced devices, applications, services, and technology with more gusto than ever before. In the waning hours of 2011, we crossed the 6 billion subscriptions milestone. While the first billion took 19 years, this last billion only took 15 months.

Smartphones are selling like hot cakes. We estimate that by the end of Q4 2011, over 60% of the devices sold in the US were smartphones and over 30% of the global sales were for the evolved brethren of the primordial featurephones. Sparked by insatiable consumer demand for mobile data, LTE and HSPA+ networks are sprouting all over the planet with US leading the charge for broadband deployment.

Our annual survey is a way for us to engage our community on the trends for the next year. We put some of the pressing questions to our colleagues and industry leaders. We are able to glean some valuable insights from their choices and comments, some tangible shifts, and get a sense of what’s to come. Executives, developers, and insiders (n=150) from leading mobile companies and startups from across the value chain and around the world participated to help see what 2012 might bring to keep us on our toes. What makes this survey unique is that it draws upon the collective wisdom of folks who are at the center of the mobile evolution.

Fifteen names were randomly drawn for the limited edition of the Mobile Future Forward 2011 book. The winners are:

Tor Bjorn Minde, Head of Ericsson Labs, Ericsson
Sunder Somasundaram, Industry Solutions Practice Director, AT&T
C. Enrique Ortiz, Mobile Technologist, About Mobility
Russell Buckley, CMO, Eagle Eye
Marianne Marck, VP – Engineering, Starbucks
John Foster, President, ZED USA
Angel Luis Saez, Sr. Director, Orange Spain
Dilip Mistry, Senior Director, Microsoft Asia
Phyllis Reuther, Advanced Analytics Lab, Sprint
Gene Keenan, VP of Mobile, Isobar
Elizabeth Day, Director of Finance, Trilogy International
Alan Cole, Research Staff Member, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
X J Wang, VP – GM China, Vesta Corp
Michelle Lee, Director, SK Telecom
Hemant Chandak, Sr. Analyst, Cisco Systems

Thanks again to everyone who contributed. We will be calling on you again next year. It has been a terrific year for us at Chetan Sharma Consulting and we are looking forward to an engaging and productive 2012.

Be well, do good work, and stay in touch.

Thanks and with warm wishes,

Your feedback is always welcome.

Thanks

Chetan Sharma

Now onto the 2012 Mobile Industry Predictions Survey Results.

1. What was most newsworthy in Mobile 2011?

Android had a spectacular rise in 2011 around the globe. Android OEMs collectively shipped the most number of devices and while margins shrank, they were able to put a united front to iOS. 2011 will always be remembered for the passing away of the industry transformer Steve Jobs. His work directly or indirectly touched billions of souls around the planet, many times over – something rarest of human beings are able to achieve in their life time. Regulatory tussles and significant increase in IP disputes also occupied the headlines. Amazon announced its intention for the mobile space with the launch of Kindle Fire.

2. What will be the biggest mobile stories of 2012?

As we look towards 2012, our panel voted for the continued growth of mobile data as the biggest story followed by Amazon’s entry into the mobile space. Some key questions for the year are: Will Microsoft/Nokia devices will make any meaningful progress? Will RIM survive the year? How does Google manage the fragmentation, decline in margins (for the OEMs), and the IP issues? Will any high-profile security and privacy mishaps lead to more regulatory entanglements? Facebook IPO and its mobile ambitions? How do operators manage the data demand? Which M&As will capture industry’s attention? Will Apple continue to dominate on both smartphone and tablet front? What does Apple do with mobile payments? and much more. Clearly, it is going to be a terrific year.

3. Who will be the most open player in the mobile ecosystem in 2012?

File this in the “perception is reality” folder. Despite all the criticism, Google has maintained its strong position as the most open player in the mobile industry.

4. What applications will define 4G?

Still looking for a killer-4G app? Video, cloud computing, and access will continue to drive 4G demand and growth.

5. What will be the breakthrough category in mobile in 2012?

For a second year in a row, the panel voted for mobile payments and mobile commerce as the top two category that will find their voice. Mobile advertising has become mainstream so it lost its ranking in the top 3.

6. What will be the most popular consumer mobile applications in 2012?

Apps preferences vary by regions depending on a whole range of factors. Messaging and Commerce are the top two categories for the developing world while consumers in the developed nations are likely to gravitate towards commerce and location based services.

7. Which will be the most dominant (unit sales) tablet platform in 2 years?

iOS and Android will dominate the tablet landscape for the next 24 months. A late entry by Windows 8 tablets could make a dent but don’t count on it.

8. Who will make the biggest mobile acquisition in 2012?

2011 had its fair share of block-buster acquisitions, some successful while others were not. Our panel expects Microsoft and Google to continue making the biggest acquisitions.

9. How will the "Apps vs. Mobile Web" debate shape up in 2012?

It seems like the pendulum is swinging towards the mobile web though hybrid solutions are likely to stay with us for a long time.

10. Who will define the mobile payment/commerce space?

The financial companies safely locked in the mobile payments space and while the value chain is fairly complicated and definition confusion abounds, the likes of Visa, Operators and Google will continue to drive the payments/commerce space.

11. Which solutions will gain the most traction for managing mobile data broadband consumption?

Managing data growth and margins drives all strategies at mobile operators these days which in turns drives the value chain. 4G, tiered pricing, and mobile offload continue to be the top solutions if one has the spectrum that is.

12. Which category will generate the most mobile data revenue in 2012?

Messaging, access, apps, and advertising are the four broad categories that drive mobile data revenues around the world. The developing markets rely on messaging while the developed markets are increasingly looking to access as their dominant form of revenue generation.

13. What will help mobile cloud computing gain traction in 2012?

Mobile cloud computing will continue to be defined by enterprise, storage, and media needs.

14. Which enterprise segment will mobile impact the most?

Best buy is becoming the next Circuit City. Other retailers will follow unless they can successful reinvent themselves. Health is more regulatory driven so the progress will be slow though it is ripe for a complete overhaul and developing nations are moving much faster in this space.

15. What will be the dominant revenue model for apps in 2012?

In-app revenue model made good strides in 2011 but the combination of the various available revenue models will be the norm for most application developers.

16. What mode of mobile payments will get traction in North America and Western Europe in 2012?

2011 was the year to set the ground work for growth in the mobile payments space. Given the investment and focus, we are likely to see more movement and consumer involvement in 2012 with proximity based solutions and commerce of physical goods on mobile.

17. What will be the most successful non-mobile-phone category in 2012?

Tablets dominate. Period.

18. Which of the following are likely to happen in the near future?

The is a significant shift in computing taking place right in front of our eyes wherein tablets are replacing laptops and even desktops in the enterprise. European operators have been experiencing tough times while some of the Asian operators are flush with cash, they might make their move in 2012 though regulatory hurdles might prove to be an issue. 33% of the nations will have elections in 2012, maybe which will move mobile voting to the forefront in some nations. Our panel thought there is a better chance of humans discovering water on another planet than rise of another significant mobile OS.

19. Which areas will feel the most impact from Regulators in 2012?

Net-neutrality and market competitiveness will keep the regulators busy in 2012.

20. Who was the mobile person of the year?

Clearly, Steve Jobs was an easy choice but who will replace him 2012? Jeff Bezos has an early lead followed by Andy Rubin and Mark Zuckerberg. Angry Birds representing the developer community will be in for another terrific year. Other honorable mentions were Tim Cook, Paul Jacobs, Sanjiv Ahuja, Dan Hesse, and Glenn Lurie.

A lot to look forward to in the New Year. My thanks to all who participated and we hope you found it useful as you embark on your journey for a successful 2012.

We will be keeping a close eye on the trends in the wireless data sector in our blog, twitter feeds, future research reports, and articles. The next US Wireless Data Market update will be released in Feb 2012. The next Global Wireless Data Market update will be issued in Apr 2012.

Disclaimer: Some of the companies mentioned in this survey are our clients.

Mobile Breakfast Series – Mobile 2012: Trends and Opportunities December 15, 2011

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, Connected Devices, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Patent Strategies, Patent Strategy, Privacy, US Wireless Market, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so far

We held our 8th Mobile Breakfast Series event earlier today. As is the tradition, we delved into discussing the trends and opportunities for the coming year. As usual it was a sold out crowd with terrific panelists representing different parts of the value chain.

2011 has been a fascinating year – with all the mergers, sky rocketing data growth especially in the US market. 2011 will also be remembered for the passing away of Steve Jobs, the man who helped change the global mobile industry over the course of the last four years. Locally, lots happening – Microsoft/Nokia alliance is launching new devices, Amazon has entered the mobile space with both feet, mobile gaming remains hot, and on a broader scale, we are going through the process of mobilification of everything.

Mark Anderson, CEO of Strategic News Service. I have known Mark for over 15 years now as one of the early subscribers to his wonderful newsletter. My good friend and coauthor Joe Herzog introduce me to Mark and since then I have been influenced by his writing. If you follow my blog, the name AORTA or Always On Real Time Access was coined by Mark in the late nineties and he generously allowed me to use it. Mark has also been writing about the carry-along-PC aka tablets for sometime and won the bet with bet with Michael Dell on the growth of this sector. He just finished off his annual predictions for 2012, so we had a lot to talk about.

Laura Marriott is CEO of Neomedia which is doing some pioneering work in the mobile barcode/mobile marketing space. But she is more famous for her work at the Mobile Marketing Association where she helped grow the industry and the association to make it a thriving enterprise.

Satya Mallya is Director at Orange. For those of you don’t know Orange is one of the top European Operators but he is based in the silicon valley working on some cool projects. He has been in the telecom space for almost 20 years working at Bell Labs, Octel and two startups

Brian Fling is CEO of pinchZoom a mobile agency that helps big brands like BBC, Paypal, Delta and others understand mobile design and development. He is passionate about mobile user experience, has spoken and written extensively about the subject.

Jay Emmet is GM OpenMarket, SVP, Amdocs and knows the messaging, commerce space on the back of his hand. Very successful stints at mblox, ATG and others. Knows the operator world really well and has been straddling both the on-deck/off-deck world for a long time.

We touched on a range of subjects from IP to platforms, from privacy/security to mobile commerce and payments, from Microsoft to Amazon .. and so on and so forth. Below is the summary of the discussion:

While the economy in various regions has been shambles, the tech industry has been largely protected, especially, the mobile industry. We are lucky to be working in space. Amen!
As far as the mobile platforms are concerned, there are only two that matter – iOS and Android with iOS still having a strong upper hand. Android is plagued with IP issues and OEMs are starting to have second thoughts about the cost and risks of supporting Android in the long-term. All this is of course very fluid and will depend on the outcome of a number of IP cases in courts.
Microsoft has made some progress with Nokia but as recent shuffling indicates, all is not good and there is going to be considerable work needed in the coming days to get alliance working in sync and work a thriving ecosystem long-term.
Siri has just changed the game at some many levels. Consumers now expect more from their devices and players are scrambling to deliver.
This year began with the debate of apps vs. mobile web. Mobile Apps have fundamentally changed the mobile UI and design paradigm. Consumers don’t want to just browse a page on their devices, they want great user experiences all of which can’t be delivered on mobile web. Apps stay quite a bit ahead of the game.
There is systematic IP theft and cyberattacks going on and western nations and companies are finally waking up to do something substantial. However, it is going to be a long journey to get it right.
Many small companies have built good, attractive IP portfolios in mobile and given the investment and invention, they should be allowed to maximize the value of their IP.
Amazon’s entry has changed the game. It has already become the number two in tablets and more to come. It will impact retail, advertising, and many other segments of the consumer economy.
Over the last 20 years, capacity has been an issue every year but this time around, the capacity constraints are significant. While the services and consumption have gotten much better in orders of magnitude, the prices have largely stayed the same. To build capital-intensive networks, operators will have to find ways to increase data revenues.
Operator channel is still a viable channel for the developers especially the ones who are looking for broader international reach.
Mobile Security on smartphones remains a worrying concern and is an opportunity area for entrepreneurs.
Mobile Privacy is a complicated issue. Many businesses are actually based on exploiting the privacy not protecting it so the business models are at odds with the privacy mantra and regulations. Something has to give. More regulations to come.
QR codes and NFC will live in harmony for sometime.
There are currently no clear winners in the mobile payments space. It is likely to stay very fragmented and is likely to become even more so over the coming days before any leaders emerge. Payments remains the most complicated ecosystem with many players involved and success stories will depend on the use-case scenarios.
Cloud offers a differentiating opportunity for the operators and compete effectively with some of the OTT players.
Many industry verticals are getting transformed by mobile. Big brands are aggressively pursuing mobile as a key strategic project. Health, Retail – opportunities abound.
While traditional messaging is getting impacted by IP messaging, the decline is not universal and operators are reacting with new business models and technology initiatives.
2012 will be another great year for mobile. Fasten your seat belts.

It was a joy to moderate this terrific panel that kept audience glued to their seats till the very end. Thanks all for coming. We have some terrific events planned for 2012, Stay Tuned.

Until then, Wish you and yours a very happy and stress-free holiday season and enormously successful and prosperous 2012.

And don’t forget to fill out our Annual Mobile Predictions Survey for 2012. There are prizes for 10 lucky winners.

ps. As I mentioned in the opening, WA state dept has a wonderful program to help startup with their travel to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next year. Details here. Startups should check it out.

US Wireless Data Market Update Q3 2011 December 12, 2011

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, Applications, CTIA, Carnival of Mobilists, Carriers, European Wireless Market, Indian Wireless Market, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, Mobile Breakfast Series, Mobile Cloud Computing, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Event, Mobile Future, Mobile Future Forward, Mobile Payments, Mobile Search, Mobile Traffic, US Wireless Market, Unified Messaging, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 5 comments

http://www.chetansharma.com/usmobileupdateQ32011.htm

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Summary

The US mobile market continued its blistering pace of growth and ecosystem restructuring. While China and India lay claim to the fastest growing markets on the planet, the many of the meaningful and impactful trends are originating out of the US market with software at the epicenter of creation, growth, change, evolution, and destruction.

The US wireless data market grew 5% Q/Q and 21% Y/Y to reach $17B in mobile data service revenues in Q3 2011 and is on course to increase Y/Y by 22% to $67B in 2011.

As predicted, Samsung overtook Apple as the leading smartphone OEM. However, Apple will continue to dominate profit share for the foreseeable future.

Smartphones continued to be sold at a brisk pace accounting for 57% of the devices sold in Q3 2011. Operators are averaging 70% of their postpaid sales as smartphones with Android dominating though iPhone leads in mindshare. The featurephone as a device species is on the verge of extinction.

Mobile Ecosystem Complexity

As expected, Amazon entered the mobile tablet space with a killer value proposition - $200 for a tablet, something the market sorely needed. While other OEMs tried to compete with Apple on performance (and have been retreating from the market one by one), Amazon is entering the battle on its own turf – a hardware platform built on Android with a slew of services to underwrite the device discount. Incumbent OEMs just can’t compete with that strategy without a complete rethink of their product strategy. What happens when Amazon’s strategy migrates to handsets? While Kindle Fire is not a serious threat to Apple iPad, and the current version has a lot of deficiencies, Amazon has carved out a nice market for itself that will continue to grow in the coming days. In some sense, with its tight integration of commerce, cloud, and advertising, it has out-maneuvered even Google.

Amazon’s impact will be felt by many others in 2012 as its strategy becomes more apparent. Retailers will be facing the brunt of the wave that Amazon represents i.e. etailers supplanting physical retailers. Don’t be surprised if Amazon purses Apple like stores to showcase its merchandize and puts a dagger at the heart of retail.

Google has done a masterful job of shepherding Android through the turbulent platform waters and make it the dominant mobile platform in terms of shipments.

Microsoft and Nokia finally introduced the Windows devices and it has at least given them a fighting chance in 2012, though a far more competitive offering would be needed to make any significant market share or revenue share inroads. Microsoft’s Xbox/Kinect integration remains its best card for 2012.

In a severe case of corporate schizophrenia, HP first launched webOS devices, then backed away, then thought of re-launching only to give it away to open source. Similarly, RIM faces critical test in 2012 and all its hopes are pinned on the new OS that is expected to come to the market sometime next year.

Mobile is changing the way we spend

It is very clear that mobile will be at the center of the human evolution for years to come. Mobile collapses time and distance and as such impacts every facet of our lives. While we have come to know the mobile phone as a communications device, their role in our daily lives has been expanding. From checking emails, paying for tickets, sending money transfers, taking pictures of your kids, watching soccer World Cup live, checking commodity pricing, to emergency response to mHealth (mobile Health), mobile devices have become an essential tool to help us navigate our day.

Mobile also plays a key role in how we go about the most basic transaction in a given day that keeps the economy humming – spend. We discussed this and more in the paper “How Mobile Will Change The Way We Spend” that was released last quarter.

What to expect in the coming months?

All this has setup an absolutely fascinating 2012 in the communication/computing industry. Convergence is everywhere and is leading to a fundamental reset of the value chains and ecosystems.

As usual, we will be keeping a very close eye on the micro- and macro-trends and reporting on the market on a regular basis in various private and public settings.

Against this backdrop, the analysis of the Q3 2011 US wireless data market is:

Service Revenues

The US Wireless data service revenues grew 5% Q/Q and 21% Y/Y to $17B in Q3 2011. The mobile data services revenues for the US market are on track to reach $67B in 2011.
Verizon and AT&T had a good mobile data quarter accounting for 62% of the increase in data revenues in Q3 2011.
For the quarter, AT&T and Verizon accounted for 69% of the market data services revenues and 62% of the subscription base.
Verizon maintained its #1 ranking again just edging past NTT DoCoMo who came in at number two with $5.95B in data revenues for the quarter. AT&T maintained its #3 position with $5.6B in data revenues. Sprint and T-Mobile maintained their #6 and #8 rank in the top 10 mobile data operators list for Q3 2011.

ARPU

The Overall ARPU increased by $0.31. Average voice ARPU declined by $0.49 while the average data ARPU grew by $0.80 or 4% Q/Q.
The average industry percentage contribution of data to overall ARPU was 37.6% in Q3 2011 and is likely to exceed 40% by Q1 2012. As expected, Verizon became the first US operator to eclipse the 40% mark with AT&T and Sprint close behind. (for reference, all three major Japanese operators are now above the 50% mark).
The top three operators were neck-and-neck in data ARPU each recording a 39%+ performance. T-Mobile ended the quarter exceeding the 30% mark for the first time.
We expect data revenues to exceed voice revenues in the US market in early 2013.

Subscribers

Helped by the growth in connected devices, the overall net-adds increased by 4.9M with Verizon accounting for almost 50% of the growth.
For the eight straight quarter, AT&T reported more net-adds from connected devices than postpaid subs. AT&T now accounts for 43% of connected devices in the US (w/ cellular subscription of some sort).
Overall, AT&T has 43% of the connected device share of the market. The connected device segment growth slowed down to 8% Q/Q and is still up 32% Y/Y.
Sprint added more than a million subscriptions while T-Mobile added 126k.

Applications and Services

After unseating Philippines as the king of TXT messaging last quarter, US TXT messaging continues to grow albeit at a slower pace. Philippines is seeing a sharp decline in per user messaging due to IP messaging. Some of the European operators are also experiencing the pain of declining SMS usage. As expected, this transition will continue around the world at different rates. In the US, while the change is underway, we don’t expect any dramatic declines like the Philippines market in the near-term.
The market is finally starting to see activity in the mobile commerce and payment services as well as in various industry verticals like healthcare, retail, and education.
Q3 2011 again saw tremendous activity in the mobile commerce and payments space with lot of announcements from the operators, Internet players, and startups as well as the retailers and the ecommerce players. All are vying for a piece of the mobile wallet. Much more to come in the next 12 months.

Handsets

Smartphones continued to be sold at a brisk pace accounting for 57% of the devices sold in Q3 2011. Operators are averaging 70% of their postpaid sales as smartphones with Android dominating though iPhone leads in revenue and mindshare.
Nokia’s position in the market improved slightly with the launch of WP7 devices. While it is fairly clear that Windows will acquire the #3 spot behind iOS and Android, the journey to a substantial and competitive market share is still ways off.
As predicted in the last update, Samsung overtook Apple in smartphone sales and is unlikely to relinquish the title despite a blockbuster iPhone 4S launch in Q4.
37% of all smartphones sold globally in Q3 were sold in the US making it the most attractive market for the OEMs.
Smartphones now account for over 80% revenue of all phones sold in the US.
In the vertical vs. horizontal platform battle, the ecosystem is shifting towards horizontal domination in the near-term (units sold) while a majority of the profits reside in the vertical column.
87% of the tablets use WiFi only (some have inactivated cellular chipset) meaning the operator channel is not a necessary distribution channel. Operators who start to bundle multiple devices by single data plans and data buckets are going to see a better yield in this category. As expected, Verizon announced family data plans for 2012. Other operators will quickly follow or may even preempt Verizon.
Verizon added another 1.4M LTE subscribers making it the leading LTE operator in the world. AT&T’s LTE plans are gathering steam and Sprint plans to offer LTE in 2012.
iPhone finally arrived at Sprint. Sales of iPhone 4S have been brisk which is likely to make it the top selling device for the most important quarter of the year.

Mobile Data Growth

While the spectrum debate rages on, in addition to the network and backhaul upgrades, policy management and data offload have emerged as top two solutions that operators deploying around the world. Signaling management solutions like Diameter routing are also getting good traction. However, a long-term video solution is still elusive. As we have been saying in our Yottabyte series of research papers, a comprehensive solution strategy is needed to effectively manage margins/bit.
We will have the 3^rd edition of our “Managing Growth and Profits in the Yottabyte Era”research out early next year.

Global Update

Race to a billion – India’s net-addition rate declined significantly in Q3 2011 while China kept its current pace. We expect that China will be the first country to exceed 1 Billion subscriptions by mid-2012. For India, the event will now occur in 2013.
For more details, please see our Global Mobile Wireless Market Update released in July 2011.

Mobile Future Forward

Our annual mobile thought-leadership summit - Mobile Future Forward was a grand success. Our thanks to all those who attended as well as to the speakers, sponsors, and well-wishers for making it happen. Planning for 2012 summit are underway and we will keep you posted as plans develop.

More information at http://www.mobilefutureforward.com

Mobile Predictions Survey 2012

As is the tradition, we are running our annual Mobile Predictions Survey for 2012. Will appreciate your input in understanding the trends and news stories that will make 2012 another big year in mobile. Winners of the survey get our fabulous limited edition Mobile Future Forward 2011 book that contains 19 essays from the global leaders in the mobile industry. (Mobile Predictions Survey Results for 2011 here)

Your feedback is always welcome.

Thanks.

Chetan Sharma

We will be keeping a close eye on the trends in the wireless data sector in our blog, twitter feeds, future research reports, and articles. The next US Wireless Data Market update will be released in Feb 2012. The next Global Wireless Data Market update will be issued in Apr 2012.

Disclaimer: Some of the companies mentioned in this paper are our clients.

New Paper - How Mobile Will Change The Way We Spend – A Mobile Future Forward Paper August 5, 2011

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, CTIA, Connected Devices, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Indian Wireless Market, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Breakfast Series, Mobile Cloud Computing, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Future Forward, Mobile Payments, Mobile Search, US Wireless Market, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so far

How Mobile Will Change The Way We Spend

A Mobile Future Forward Paper

The Mobile Future Forward 2011 Book will contain 18 essays from thought-leaders around the globe and is going to be distributed exclusively to the Mobile Future Forward attendees on Sept 12^th. The book is published by FutureText, UK.

The essays from the Mobile Future Forward speakers and industry luminaries are:

1. How Mobile Will Change The Way We Spend – Chetan Sharma, President, Chetan Sharma Consulting

2. The Mobile Cloud Connected Enterprise – Abhi Ingle, VP, Advanced Mobility Solutions, AT&T

3. Mobile and Health Possibilities – Subba Rao, CEO, Razi Health

4. Buying a Mobile Device in 2014 – Frank Meehan, CEO, INQMobile

5. Surviving and Thriving in the Age of Mobile Internet – An MNO Game Plan – Manoj Leelanivas, SVP and GM, Juniper Networks

6. Mobile Future Forward Interview with Steve Elfman – President, Sprint Nextel

7. Is Mobile Local Advertising Finally Poised to Take Off? – William Hsu, SVP and CPO, AT&T Interactive

8. Implications of a Connected Society – Danny Bowman, President, Sprint Nextel

9. Big Data and Mobile – Braxton Woodham, Head of Engineering, AVOS

10. Broadband for All – Sanjiv Ahuja, CEO, LightSquared

11. Wireless Competition and Innovation – Stephen Bye, CTO, Sprint Nextel

12. The Future of the Personal Information Economy: Enabling Success Across the Mobile Ecosystem – Ken Denman, CEO, Openwave

13. T-Commerce – Carving Out and Extending E-Commerce – Ramneek Bhasin, SVP and GM, TheFind

14. The Case for Building a Mobile Broadcast Content Delivery Network – The Critical Piece to Fulfilling Mobile Data Demands of the Future – Erik Moreno, SVP, FOX Network

15. Connected Devices – Redefining the Channel – Biju Nair, Chief Strategy Officer, Synchronoss Technologies

16. How Mobile Can Turn Retailers Into Media Companies – Dale Nitschke, CEO, Ovative Group

17. The Future of (Mobile) Communications – Carlos Domingo, CEO, Telefonica R&D

18. Competition and the Evolution of Mobile Markets – Chetan Sharma, President, Chetan Sharma Consulting

Download (http://www.mobilefutureforward.com and click on the White paper image)

Executive Summary

In his 1943 paper titled “A Theory of Human Motivation”, the famed philosopher Abraham Maslow theorized his observations of human needs and curiosities. His pyramid came to depict the human hierarchy of needs. If we map the physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization needs onto how much we spend as a community, it correlates rather well. As you would expect, human spending behavior is tightly tied to the basic needs. The amount of money we spend on these basic needs might vary by demographics or region but in aggregate, we tend to spend the most for the things that are the bottom of the pyramid – shelter, food, and water.

Over time, entrepreneurs have used technology to drive fundamental changes in consumer behavior for e.g. Microsoft with personal computers, Google with search, Apple with devices, Facebook with social connections. Of course, the web of interconnection, the various vertical industries that map against the human needs is very complex and as new technology cycles come into play, inventors get busy with enhancing performance sometimes by manifold to keep up with the insatiable demand and appetite to do more.

It is very clear that mobile will be at the center of human evolution for years to come. Mobile collapses time and distance and as such impacts every facet of our lives. While we have come to know the mobile phone as a communications device, their role in our daily lives has been expanding. From checking emails, paying for tickets, sending money transfers, taking pictures of your kids, watching soccer World Cup live, checking commodity pricing, to emergency response to mHealth (mobile Health), mobile devices have become an essential tool to help us navigate our day. As we alluded to earlier, it is not just the traditional phones that have cellular connection these days; we are slowly but surely moving into an era where a majority of electronic devices from small tags to giant billboards will have a communication channel that both machines and humans can interact with.

Mobile also plays a key role in how we go about the most basic transaction in a given day that keeps the economy humming – spend.

In this paper, we will take a look at how the connected universe of devices and sensors are going to impact the way we spend and how all this creates new opportunities to meet the basic human needs.

Your feedback is always welcome.

Thanks

Chetan

State of the Global Mobile Industry – Half Yearly Assessment 2011 July 7, 2011

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, Carriers, Connected Devices, Devices, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, IP, IP Strategy, Indian Wireless Market, Infrastructure, Intellectual Property, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, Mergers and Acquisitions, Microsoft Mobile, Middleware, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Cloud Computing, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Event, Mobile Future, Mobile Future Forward, Mobile Gaming, Mobile Payments, Mobile Search, Mobile Traffic, Mobile Usability, Mobile Users, Mobile Wallet, Networks, Partnership, Patent Strategies, Patent Strategy, Patents, Privacy, Smart Phones, Speaking Engagements, Speech Recognition, Student Paper Contest, US Wireless Market, Wi-Fi, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 6 comments

http://www.chetansharma.com/globalmobileupdate1H2011.htm

Download PDF (56 pages, 3 MB)

The big picture

The global mobile industry is the most vibrant and fastest growing industry. We expect the total revenue in the industry to touch approximately $1.3 Trillion in 2011 with mobile data representing 24% of the mix. Global Mobile Data revenues are expected to eclipse $300 Billion for the first time in 2011. It is also the first year in which non-messaging data revenues will make up the majority of the overall global data revenues at 53%.

We expect the total number of subscriptions to exceed 6 billion by the end of 2011. The first 1 billion took over 20 years and this last one is going to take only 15 months. The primary growth drivers are India and China which are cumulatively adding 75M new subs every quarter. Indian and China are also entangled in the race to the billion. At the end of Q2 2011, China was ahead by 50M but India is adding subscriptions at faster rate and is likely to eclipse China before Q2 2012. By then, both nations are expected to exceed 1 Billion in total subscriptions making up 31% of the global subscriptions.

In Q1 2011, US became the first major market to exceed the 50% mark in smartphone sales. The global figure stands at approximately 26%. Some operators expect 90% of their devices sales to be smartphones by the end of the year. In terms of the actual smartphone penetration, we expect the US market to eclipse the 50% mark in 2012.

The number of mobile operators with more than $1B in data revenues will increase to 47 in 2011. This number was only at 13 in 2005.

Japan continues to be the leader in mobile data with NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, and Softbank Japan ahead of the pack in terms of mobile data revenue and data as a % of total ARPU. In 2011, it became the first major market to have more than 50% of its mobile revenue from data services. Next, Australia and the US have made good inroads in the last two years. In fact, if we look at the overall data revenue, US is much further ahead than any nation due to the size of the market.

While India has the highest subscriber growth rate in the world right now, the revenue generating opportunity remain down right anemic compared to other major markets with average dropping down to $3.50 in overall ARPU. Even with significant subscriber base, there is going to be a general lack of opportunity in the market for the next couple of years relative to other markets.

Mobile Trends for 2011

1.Total Global Subscriptions to hit 6 Billion

–India and China racing to a billion a piece

2.Total Global Mobile Revenues to hit $1.3 Trillion, almost 2% of Global GDP

–Top 10 operators control 43% of the global mobile revenues

3.Total Global Mobile Data Revenues to eclipse $300 Billion

–Non-messaging data now owns 53% of the global mobile data revenues

4.Mobile Devices are now exceeding traditional computers in unit sales + revenue

–Majority of the device sales in the US are now smartphones. Device Replacement is shrinking

5.Mobile Broadband (4G) is being deployed at a faster rate than previous generations

–Over 1 Billion broadband connections by 2011

6.Global Mobile Apps revenue has shifted to off-deck

–The decline is directly proportional to the increase in smartphone penetration by region

7.All major markets are consolidating with the top 3 players at 85% of the market

–Regulators will have to be more prudent and proactive about managing competitiveness and growth

8.Mobile Data Traffic will be 95% of the global mobile traffic by 2015

–Many countries are facing spectrum exhaust in the next 5 years

9.Connected device segment is growing at the fastest pace

–Operators will have to quickly adapt their strategies to stay relevant in this segment

10.Several multi-billion dollar opportunity segments are emerging

–Mobile Advertising, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Wellness, Mobile Games, and Mobile Cloud Computing to name a few

11.Mobile Ecosystem has become very dynamic and unpredictable

–Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook have become the most important revenue generating mobile platforms

12. There will be more changes in the next 10 years than in the previous 100

– The value chains will keep disrupting every 12-24 months by the new players and business models

13. Intellectual Property has become a key component of long-term product strategy

– Top 20 control 1/3rd of the overall mobile patent pool

Devices

Nokia and RIM are under severe market scrutiny as investors and developers leave in droves. Lack of product planning and execution has left their market share in disarray. Nokia’s valuation has been cut into half while the newcomer HTC edged past the industry giant in a remarkable story of the year. Nokia’s release of N9 shows the engineering and creative design depth but a lot is riding on the first generation of Nokia Windows Phones. While the market hasn’t shown much appetite for Windows phone thus far, a good family of devices might be able to slow the loss trajectory and position the combined team for the up-for-grabs 3^rd spot in the ecosystem. HP’s acquisition of Palm is finally bringing some new products to the market but the lack of an effective ecosystem means lack of traction in 2011. Given that the computing is shifting to mobile devices, we can expect some of the weaker desktop/laptop players will exit the industry.

Tablets are primarily being used in the WiFi mode because the primary use case is indoors and WiFi gives a better (and cheaper) user experience. Once operators start to roll out user-friendly family data plans across multiple devices, we can expect the cellular activation go higher but will still be dominated by WiFi overall.

The number of connected devices per subscriber and per family will continue to increase over the course of this decade. As the cost structure and margin profile for these devices will be different, we are likely to measure performance of various operators using margin analysis for e.g. while the ARPU for connected devices is 5-10 times lower than the postpaid subscribers, the margins are typically higher due to lower costs of sales, marketing, support, and subsidy. As such the overall impact is dilutive ARPU but higher margins. So, instead of focusing on just the ARPU, the efficiency of operators will be measured in how well they maintain average margin per user (AMPU) and average margin per connection (AMPC).

Managing the data growth

Competitive landscape

Apps and Services

As expected, mobile commerce and payment discussions are dominating the ecosystem. There is clearly a lot of investment and marketing dollars being spent. However, the traditional payments networks are largely intact. The new opportunities are being built on top of the existing payment platforms with convenience (Square) and offers and advertising (Google Wallet, ISIS, Groupon). Beyond payments, mobile is getting ingrained into every vertical and every facet of our lives – from healthcare to education, from energy to entertainment, from communication to socialization. And we are in the early innings of figuring out the business models, ecosystem leaders, user behavior, regulatory needs, and the overall impact on society.

Ecosystem Dynamics

It is very clear that the ecosystem dynamics can change very quickly, one just can’t take the competitive and friendly forces for granted. In the past, the silos and segments were clearly defined with little overlap. However, over the course of last couple of years, players have been migrating and surfing in segments across the board - from Apple to Visa, from P&G to AT&T, from Facebook to Time Warner, from Google to Best Buy, every company wants to capture the mindshare and piece of the consumer’s pocketbook. The fine line between partners and competitors can get obliterated in a quarter. Apple is competing with Cisco, Comcast is going after AT&T’s business, Visa and Verizon want to be the payment channel of choice, Amazon is gunning for Microsoft’s enterprise business. One product launch, one acquisition, can change the game in an instant. And this is only the beginning.

Mobile is fundamentally reshaping how we as consumers spend from housing and healthcare to entertainment and travel, from food and drinks to communication and transportation. Mobile not only influences purchase behavior but also post purchase opinions. When the share button is literally a second away, consumers are willingly sharing more information than ever before. Mobile is thus helping close the nirvana gap for brands and advertisers who seek to connect advertising to actual transactions. The long-term battle is however for owning the context of the users. Having the best knowledge about the user to help drive the transaction is the simply the most valuable currency of commerce.

Mobile Future Forward

We will be discussing the global mobile ecosystem – the challenges and the opportunities at our annual mobile thought-leadership summit – Mobile Future Forward - brought to you in partnership with our terrific partners – Qualcomm, Millennial Media, Real Networks, AT&T Interactive, Synchronoss Technologies, OpenMarket, Ericsson, and Openwave. Hope to see you in Seattle on Sept 12^th.

Some of the distinguished guests include:

Abhi Ingle, VP – Advanced Mobility, AT&T Wireless; Amit Gupta, SVP and CTO, INQMobile; Bob Gessel, VP/Head of Technology and Network Strategy, Ericsson; Braxton Woodham, Head of Engineering, AVOS; Carlos Domingo, CEO, Telefonica; Charlie Herrin, SVP - Products and Technology, Comcast; Dale Nitschke, former President, Target; Danny Bowman, President - Connected Devices, Sprint Nextel; David Messenger, EVP, Head - Online/Mobile, American Express; Erik Moreno, SVP, Fox; Gibu Thomas, SVP - Online/Mobile, Walmart; Glenn Lurie, President, AT&T Wireless; Hank Skorny, Chief Strategy Officer, Real Networks; Janet Schijns, VP, Verizon Wireless; Jason McKenzie, President, HTC-Americas; Jay Emmet, GM, OpenMarket; Jeremiah Zinn, EVP, MTV; Jerry Batt, CIO, PulteGroup; John SanGiovanni, Cofounder, Zumobi; Ken Denman, CEO, Openwave; Ken Wirth, President, Alcatel Lucent Wireless; Kris Rinne, SVP - Networks, AT&T Wireless; Mark Rolston, Chief Creative Officer, Frog Design; Matt Oommen, President, Reliance Communications; Mikael Back, VP of Products and Portfolio Management, Ericsson; Mike Mulica, President, Synchronoss Technologies; Paul Palmieri, CEO, Millennial Media; Prof. Cliff Nass, Human Computer Interaction, Stanford University; Rob Glaser, Partner, Accel; Sanjiv Ahuja, CEO, LightSquared; Stephen Bye, CTO, Sprint; Steve Mollenkopf, EVP and Group President, Qualcomm; Subba Rao, former CEO, Tata DoCoMo; Suja Chandrasekaran, CIO, Timberland; Will Hsu, Chief Product Officer, AT&T Interactive

More information at http://www.mobilefutureforward.com

Your feedback is always welcome.

Thanks and have a great 2H 2011.

Chetan Sharma

We will be keeping a close eye on the trends in the wireless data sector in our blog, twitter feeds, future research reports, and articles. The next US Wireless Data Market update will be released in Aug 2011. The next Global Wireless Market update will be issued in Jan 2012.

Disclaimer: Some of the companies mentioned in this paper are our clients.

Mobile Future Forward Student Paper Contest June 15, 2011

Posted by chetan in : 4G, AORTA, Connected Devices, European Wireless Market, Indian Wireless Market, Mobile Future Forward, Student Paper Contest, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

To create the future, we must first be capable of imagining it
- Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad, Competing for the Future, 1994

The Event

It was the most satisfying experience of my career. The contest and the Mobile Future Forward summit made me reevaluate my research and career from a fresh perspective.
- Lun Huang, Phd Student - Electrical Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology, 2010 Mobile Future Forward Student Paper Contest Winner

Being selected as one of the winners of the contest presented me with an absolutely enriching experience. The most exciting part of the experience was the opportunity to interact and network with top industry leaders from all major mobile companies.
- Smruti Parichha, Grad Student - Dept of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California, Riverside 2010 Mobile Future Forward Student Paper Contest Winner

Mobile Future Forward is an executive summit attracting some of the most influential minds who are shaping the mobile industry. The experts and visionaries from around the globe will discuss the mobile industry 2-5 years forward, envision what the user experience and use case scenarios look like, discuss and debate the challenges and opportunities in the journey to that vision.

The Contest

The best student paper contest is open to universities and research institutes around the world. Your task is to help us imagine new technologies, new experiences, new applications and services, new use cases, new business models of the mobile future. The paper can be on a specific technical or business subject within the mobile industry from mobile teleportation to fuel cells to a new enterprise collaboration tool and everything in between. The idea is to let your imagination fly without any restrictions and dream of what’s possible in the next 5-10 years. Papers can be about technical solutions to the most pressing problems, about new revenue models, about your vision of how mobile will be used in the future, etc. Paper length: 1000-1500 words.

The Prize

Authors of the top two outstanding papers will get a paid trip to attend the conference and mingle with the who’s who of the wireless industry. Winners will also be eligible for more prizes. Please send in your entries by July 15th, 2011 tocontest@mobilefutureforward.com including a copy of your current student ID. Use of graphics and illustrations is encouraged. While an indication of interest is not required, it is appreciated. A panel of industry experts and executives will vote on the best papers. They will be ranked on originality, ambitiousness, creativity, depth, and clarity of vision. The goal of the contest is to bring out and reward the best thinking from the leaders of tomorrow.

2010 Student Paper Contest

Lun Huang of Illinois Institute of Technology and Smruti Parichha of University of California, Riverside wrote the top two winning papers respectively and were invited to meet with the senior executives in the mobile industry and attend the Mobile Future Forward Executive Summit. Our thanks to all the students who participated, the judges who helped us pick the winners, and Intel for supporting the contest. See details here.

For more Info, please contact contest@mobilefutureforward.com

New Paper: Mobile Cloud Computing May 25, 2011

Posted by chetan in : 4G, AORTA, BRIC, Connected Devices, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Infrastructure, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Future Forward, Mobile Search, Mobile Traffic, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so far

Mobile Cloud Computing

http://www.chetansharma.com/mobilecloudcomputing.htm

New Research: Competition and the Evolution of Mobile Markets April 28, 2011

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, Carriers, Devices, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Gaming, General, India, Indian Wireless Market, Infrastructure, Intellectual Property, International Trade, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, M&A, Mergers and Acquisitions, Messaging, Middleware, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Networks, Patents, Privacy, Smart Phones, US Wireless Market, Wi-Fi, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 2 comments

Competition and the Evolution of Mobile Markets

A Study of Competition in Global Mobile Markets

http://chetansharma.com/mobilecompetition.htm

Over the course of the last decade, mobile communications has become an essential part of the global fabric of evolution. With almost 70% global subscription penetration as of 2010, mobility is being embedded into almost every facet of our lives. Mobility is also spreading across verticals whether it is m-pesa in Kenya or SMS based counterfeit medicine detection in Ghana or paying for your coffee using your NFC enabled mobile phone in a Tokyo café or watching the cricket world cup broadcast while hiking the Yangtze river near Tibet. Consumers expect access to information everywhere they are and the ecosystem is responding with continued innovation, which has become extremely critical in managing the competitiveness of nations.

It is also apparent that some of the innovation and market dynamics has been evidenced by the competitiveness of these markets at different levels – network, devices, and services. While the market entry conditions into the devices and software services markets have gone through significant overhaul this last decade, the competitiveness framework of the mobile networks has been more structured and controlled in many instances.

Given the importance of the mobile network infrastructure to every nation’s competitiveness, security, and productivity, it is useful to understand how the “competitive mobile markets” are formed. In theory, the perfectly competitive markets are in the best interest of the consumers as they provide the best value given the competitive dynamics and the equilibrium provides good checks and balances for the ecosystem.

The global mobile networks have shown a remarkable adherence to the “Rule of Three” which states that in any mature industry, 3 top players dominate the market. Sometimes it has been dictated by the regulators and in other instances by the markets. Some markets like in Europe have settled into a state of equilibrium while other hyper growth markets like India are shuffling to find the right balance.

The elements of globalization are also shaping how mobile network operators grow. The regulators and the political class are increasingly looking at mobile networks as national assets and any foreign ownership generally goes through tremendous scrutiny.

Having worked in major mobile markets around the world, we have been intrigued by the framework for a competitive market and this is the theme we explore in this working paper. Having the front row seat in an industry that is growing stupendously has given us some unique perspective on the competitive forces at work in the mobile space. We studied the competitive landscape in 40 top mobile markets around the globe.

This paper presents the analysis and an in-depth analytical framework to study the competitive landscape in the global mobile markets.

Download Paper (45 pages, 2MB)

Disclaimer: Some of the companies mentioned in this paper are our clients.

Mobile Breakfast Series – The Universe of Connected Devices

Posted by chetan in : Carriers, Connected Devices, Devices, European Wireless Market, Mobile Applications, Mobile Breakfast Series, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Future Forward, US Wireless Market, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

Earlier this month, we hosted our 6th Mobile Breakfast Series Event in Seattle at the picturesque Columbia Tower Club. The topic is something that has been occupying everyone’s attention lately with some terrific growth numbers.

We were doing some math earlier this year and the chart above illustrates how fast the mobile ecosystem is subsuming the computing ecosystem as they become one and the same.

As you might have noted in our 2010 US market update, connected devices is the highest growing category in the market at 55%. It is creating new revenue streams and enabling new verticals to get mobilized. It is also disrupting the traditional ecosystems. This made it a perfect time to discuss the topic in-depth.

Our panelists were:

Tyler Davidson, VP, Amdocs

Martin Fichter, VP - Product Management Americas, HTC

Mike Mulica, President and Head of Strategy, Synchronoss Technologies

Ilja Laurs, Founder and CEO, Getjar

Erik Kling, Director - M2M, Vodafone Global Enterprise Group

Wilson Rothman, Deputy Technology and Science Editor, MSNBC.com (moderator)

As always, we try to bring players across the ecosystem to have a good discussion from multiple angles. Our panel didn’t disappoint.

First a bit about the panelists to give you some background on their viewpoints. Erik Kling is deep into M2M and Vodafone is pursuing a very aggressive M2M strategy worldwide with some smart value proposition to the enterprises. That can put some of the domestic operators at a disadvantage. Tyler Davidson focuses his energy on managing customers but also thinks deeply about the management of media in the connected world. The rage of apps is carrying from smartphones to tablets and other connected devices as well and Ilja Laurs knows a thing or two about apps – running the largest independent app store and being quite successful at it.

HTC just crossed Nokia in revenues which was just unthinkable even last year. HTC has run a very effective strategy in devices and Martin Fichter is one of the guys who is making things happen in the US market. If you have an iPhone, you have been touched by Synchronoss Technologies. They activate the iOS and other devices. A billion $ company you might have never heard of. Mike Mulica has deep experience in the mobile space and is driving the strategy of connected devices and related software forward. Last but not the least, our moderator Wilson Rothman has been covering gadgets most of his adult life and is a darn good moderator.

The highlights of the discussion was as follows:

M2M is getting good traction in consumer electronics, telematics, and medical. Vodafone is doing a ton of business with the medical/pharma companies who would like connected devices without the worry of roaming, certification, etc. Within a year, Vodafone’s M2M group has grown up to 200 people and they are hiring at a rapid pace if anyone is looking.
Other M2M areas that are evolving are: security, remote access, home monitoring, etc.
Connected devices are accelerating the move from voice to data
The fact that AT&T is advertising M2M Vending machines on TV shows it is serious business.
HTC passed Nokia in market cap on the back of Android and the 4G devices. For tablets, WiFi is a preferred route rather than operators as that’s what the demand is.
With connected devices avalanche coming our way, WiFi is going to be extremely important, need better technologies for WiFi/Cellular migration.
Consumers chose a device or a service first and the operator is now an afterthought.
Operators need an open environment to operate but want to create a preference for them – it is like “controlled openness” like Microsoft so they can certify devices and apps that go on their network
All this connectivity does need billions of $ of investment so there is a need for a toll for these services. However, we need to reduce friction with security, payment, and plans.
Apple doesn’t want to be an operator but does want a free ride like NetFlix and YouTube.
WiFi is not only necessary, it is essential for the survival of the industry.
Amazon launching an app store is a good thing for the industry, puts pressure on Google a bit.
Companies like Skype would pay the operators for better bandwidth but the process is a bit cumbersome.
Battery Life. Enuff Said.

We also announced that our annual thought-leadership summit on mobile - “Mobile Future Forward” will take place on Sept 12th in Seattle. We have some terrific speakers lined up which lead to some fabulous discussion. Stay tuned for more information early May.

My utmost thanks to David Smith, SVP at Enterprise Ireland for his notes from the event. It helped refresh my memory and pointed out things that I had missed amidst running around.

Thanks all for coming and making it a successful outing. Our next Mobile Breakfast Series is going to be on Mobile Commerce and Payments in late June. Stay Tuned for details.

US Mobile Data Market Update Q4 2010 and 2010 February 28, 2011

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, Carriers, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Indian Wireless Market, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, M&A, Mergers and Acquisitions, Microsoft Mobile, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Event, Mobile Future, Mobile Future Forward, Mobile Gaming, Mobile Search, Mobile Traffic, Mobile Usability, Networks, Smart Phones, US Wireless Market, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

US Mobile Data Market Update Q4 2010 and 2010

http://www.chetansharma.com/usmarketupdate2010.htm

Download PPT

The US wireless data market grew 5% Q/Q and 23% Y/Y to reach $14.8B in mobile data service revenues in Q4 2010. The final tally for the 2010 year was $55B and we expect this to increase by 22% to $67B in 2011.

The US mobile subscriptions officially crossed the 100% penetration mark in Q4 2010.

Of all the segments, the connected device category registered the highest growth at 55% while the postpaid subscriptions grew by only 3% for the calendar year. Connected devices (including tablets, M2M, telematics, eReaders, etc.) now account for 7% of the base.

A significant shift

2010 marked the milestone of the start of a new computing and communications era. For the first time in the US, the smartphones shipments exceeded the traditional computer segments (that consists of desktops, notebooks and netbooks). In 2011, the smartphone segment along with the connected devices (tablets and eReaders) will not only exceed the computer segment in unit shipment but more importantly in the overall revenues as well. Of course, these categories are merging and the lines are blurring but it is good to take stock of the transition which will create new ecosystems and decimate the old ones over the course of this decade.

The evolution of connected devices

The connected devices category is the fastest growing segment of the market and while the ARPUs are low, due to higher margins this segment will prove to be the most profitable in the coming years. By the end of 2011, connected devices will be commanding double digit market share. However, not all sub-segments are going to be successful in the operator channel until multi-device data pricing plans are introduced. Most of the tablets and eReaders can work well with only WiFi most of the times. Monthly data plans make sense for enterprise users but not for consumers who might use these devices occasionally. As such tablets will be more successful in direct and traditional retail channels.

Operators who start to bundle multiple devices by single data plans and data buckets are going to see a better yield in this category (We will be discussing the connected devices universe in our upcoming Mobile Breakfast Series event in April).

Similarly, OEMs who rely on the operators for sell-through of tablets/eReaders will see low volumes vs. players who have more diverse distribution channels (Apple and HP). We do expect multi-device or family data plans to start being introduced in the US market in 2011.

As we had mentioned in our last research note, iPad (and other tablets) are making Netbooks irrelevant. In fact, tablets are starting to eat into the laptop category as well. As expected, the device has been a hit with many enterprises with mobile workers. Many enterprises are giving out iPads to their workforce instead of laptops or Netbooks.

At CES 2011, hundreds of tablets were introduced. While the total number of releases was noteworthy, we expect iPad to dominate the space in 2011 as competitors will find it hard to compete across all dimensions - price, performance, ecosystem, distribution, and brand power.

Mobile Data Consumption

Mobile data consumption continued to grow across all networks increasing 2-5 times on major US networks. Many of the superphones introduced in 2H10 are clocking 1-1.5GB/mo average. The average data consumption in the US at the end of 2010 was 350 MB/mo. Thus, while the data revenues for the year increased 23%, the mobile data traffic grew 132%.

The significant rise in the smartphones sales and usage in the US market (over 50% devices sold in the US in 2010 were smartphones almost twice the global average) means that by the end of 2011, in the US, the smartphones will consume more data than the data cards for the first time. We also expect US to become the number 1 nation in mobile data consumption this year edging out Sweden. A detailed treatment of the subject can be found in our "Managing Growth and Profits in the Yottabyte Era" paper. Another research update on the topic will be released in 1H11.

The center of gravity has shifted back to the US

As I mentioned in my Time magazine interview earlier this month, there is no question that the center of gravity of the mobile market has shifted back to the US. The Nokia-Microsoft announcement was a wake-up call to many in the industry who were in denial. The innovation is happening all around the world and in many areas other countries are years ahead. The markets are growing faster in India, China, and elsewhere. However, the coordinates of what’s next have clearly changed in the last three years. The software innovation and the next generation network launches in the US are laying the foundation of a solid mobile decade.

US is also the most dominant market in terms of revenue generation for the industry. While the US represents less than 6% of the subscription base, it accounts for over 21% of the data revenues with Verizon Wireless becoming the number one mobile data operator in 2010 edging past the decade long leader NTT DoCoMo. AT&T also went past China Mobile to gain its current number three ranking. By the end of 2013, the US market will account for 25% of the global mobile data services revenues (We will have a detailed analysis of the global markets in our upcoming research note in march).

Nokia-Microsoft partnership

Nokia’s market problem can be summed up thusly - “While Nokia sold 10 times more devices than Apple in 2010, its market cap is 1/10th that of Apple.” It has been clear for some time that things had to change at Nokia.

Weeks leading up to the Mobile World Congress were rampant with curiosity of who will Nokia marry to continue its next phase of device journey. The multi-billion dollar offering from Microsoft proved too hard to resist for Nokia. This news completely dominated the MWC chatter and the topic comes up invariably in many conversations since then. One has to give points to Nokia for decisiveness and for moving quickly under the pressure.

It is also indisputable that the deal is a significant win for Microsoft who has been looking to come back into the game. However, impact on Nokia remains uncertain. While there were risks with Android, going with Win7 is not an assured path to resurrection either. It all comes down to execution. Can the troops be rallied to produce a slew of competitive devices quickly that consumers and operators will find attractive?

Microsoft understands developers better than most and the two companies can bring in tremendous scale and complementary toolsets to attack the market. Nokia has significant talent and it’s a proud company but jumping into the shark-infested cold waters miles away from the shore will require all the stamina, good weather, and skill it can muster to make landfall before thanksgiving.

MeeGo is likely to go back into Intel’s camp and might look interesting to the likes of LG, Samsung and even Motorola though creating a new ecosystem is a tall order. Never a dull moment in the industry, is there?

Impact of iPhone on AT&T

It finally happened. The Verizon iPhone has kept the media busy for the last 3.5 years. It was quite an anticlimactic moment when the device finally came to the 2nd operator in the US. It was inevitable that one of the longest exclusive relationship in the wireless world will come to an end. The iPhone singlehandedly turned around AT&T relative to Verizon in the net-adds race. For 10 quarters leading up to Q2 2007, AT&T was adding less net-adds compared to Verizon, in fact the cumulative net-add loss was 3.7 million subs on an average of 374,000 subs per quarter. As soon as the iPhone was launched in Q2 2007, AT&T started adding more net-adds compared to Verizon with the 14 quarter cumulative net-add difference close to 6 million subs on an average of 426,000 subs per quarter.

What to expect in the coming months?

Kids of the now generation are growing with connected electronics that is fundamentally altering the behaviors and expectations of interaction, communication, consumption, and monetization.

Android and iOS are completely dominating the developer and ecosystem mindshare and the race to become a viable 3rd option is on. Operators would love to see another competitive force emerge in the market.

All this has setup an absolutely fascinating 2011 in the communication/computing industry. Convergence is everywhere and is leading to a fundamental reset of the value chains and ecosystems. We are going to be discussing the ins and outs of how the industry is going to evolve in the next decade in our Sept 15^th mobile thought leadership summit – Mobile Future Forward which is bringing exceptional industry thought-leaders, inventors, and doers to brainstorm, discuss, and debate what’s next. More details to come.

US is also leading the way in smartphone sales. In Q4 2010, 48% of the devices sold in the US were smartphones compared to 25% globally. The fast pace of device introduction has catapulted the agile players like Samsung and HTC to the forefront while others like LG and Sony Ericsson have lost ground. By singularly focusing on Android, Motorola did quite well in 2010 but 2011 is going to be challenging.

The pace of product introduction is accelerating with each quarter. Devices of all shapes and sizes are coming into the market literally every week. Players are having to re-evaluate their businesses and long-term strategies. There are several players whose future is at stake. The competition has grown fierce and companies are finding it hard to take ideas from R&D to products in market in a short amount of time.

While 2010 started quite active on the regulatory front as the national broadband plan was unveiled in March little substantive progress has been made w.r.t. the spectrum, net-neutrality, and other broadband related issues. The matter has swiftly moved to courts where it will take months before anything useful comes out.

Operators are starting to diversify more aggressively than in the past. AT&T’s mobile enterprise business is a leading indicator of this trend. Their focus by verticals has yielded new revenue streams and positioning them to become a one-stop shop for devices, access, and services in the enterprise market.

As usual, we will be keeping a very close eye on the micro- and macro-trends and reporting on the market on a regular basis in various private and public settings.

Against this backdrop, the analysis of the Q4 2010 and 2010 US wireless data market is:

Service Revenues

The US Wireless data service revenues grew 5% Q/Q and 23% Y/Y to $14.8B in Q410. The mobile data revenues for the US market reached $55B in 2010.
Verizon, AT&T, Sprint had a good mobile data quarter accounting for 86% of the increase in data revenues in Q4 2010.
T-Mobile’s 3G/4G drive is starting to pay off. While the postpaid net-adds were still in the red, its data growth is starting to match with its peers. The 24% smartphone base definitely helps.
For the calendar year 2010, AT&T and Verizon accounted for 69% of the market data services revenues and 64% of the subscription base.
Verizon Wireless edged past NTT DoCoMo and AT&T went past China Mobile to become #1 and #3 respectively in operators by mobile data revenues in 2010. Sprint and T-Mobile maintained their #6 and #8 rank in the top 10 mobile data operators list for 2010.

ARPU

The Overall ARPU decreased by $0.58. Average voice ARPU declined by $0.90 while the average data ARPU grew by $0.32 or 2% Q/Q.
The average industry percentage contribution of data to overall ARPU was 34% in Q410.
Verizon led in data ARPU with $18.79 followed by AT&T and Sprint. In terms of % contribution, all the top three operators exceeded the 30% mark. T-Mobile ended the quarter with approximately 28% of its revenue coming from data services.
We expect data revenues to exceed voice revenues in the US market by Q2 2013.

Subscribers

US crossed the 100% penetration mark in terms of total subscriptions.
Helped by the growth in connected devices, the overall net-adds increased by 4.9M.
For the fifth straight quarter, AT&T reported more net-adds from connected devices than postpaid subs. Connected devices are now almost 10% of AT&T’s subscription base.
Overall, AT&T edged past Verizon in total number of connected devices. The connected device segment grew 9% Q/Q and 55% Y/Y.
Sprint made a nice comeback in 2010 reversing the 11 quarter negative net-adds trend by adding three straight positive net-add quarters. Sprint extended its streak of positive net-adds to three quarters by adding over a million subs for the first time since Q1 2006.
T-Mobile however continues to be sandwiched between the top three and the next three and is having a hard time adding postpaid subscribers. For the year, the operator ended the year 390K subscribers (postpaid) below the 2009 levels. It’s churn rate is almost 60% higher than the average of its top competitors and the cost of postpaid churn was over half a billion dollars in 2010. However, the increased smartphone penetration, quick HSPA+ deployment, backhaul upgrades, and a clever marketing campaign is helping on the mobile data front.

Applications and Services

While the percentage share of the data revenues is declining for messaging, the revenue growth stays strong with almost $17B in messaging revenues.
In 2010, there was a significant shift that took place in terms of app revenues. There was more revenues generated (globally) from off-deck than on-deck for the first time and while the on-deck revenues are in billions, the decline trend looks irreversible. In the US, this shift will occur in 2011.
The usage and data consumption trends are enabling carriers to accelerate their 3.5G/4G plans and develop long-term business and technical strategies.
The market is finally starting to see activity in the mobile commerce and payment services as well as in various industry verticals like healthcare, retail, and education. Much more to come in 2011.

Handsets

Nokia sold 123.7M units in Q4 2010 accounting for 31% of the market share. Samsung continues to be one of the most agile players in the device business shipping a whopping 80.7M for a 20% share of the market. Apple again edged past RIM to be in the top 5 along with the new entrant ZTE which broke into the top 5 for the first time.

Data Traffic

As we noted in our previous updates, the data traffic is now significantly more than the voice traffic. By end of 2010, the average US consumer was consuming approximately 350 MB/mo up 132% in 12 months. The good news is that there are several solutions available and are being invented that will help manage the data growth starting with the tiered pricing plans.
Q4 10 also saw significant activity in the 4G space with Verizon launching its LTE network and after the ITU flip-flop, the HSPA+ deployments of T-Mobile and AT&T Wireless along with Sprint’s WiMAX made US the epicenter of 4G growth for the next few years.

Your feedback is always welcome.

Thanks.

Chetan Sharma

We will be keeping a close eye on the trends in the wireless data sector in our blog, twitter feeds, future research reports, and articles. The next US Wireless Data Market update will be released in May 2011. The next Global Wireless Data Market update will be issued in Mar 2011.

Disclaimer: Some of the companies mentioned in this paper are our clients.

2011 Mobile Predictions Survey Results January 3, 2011

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2011 Mobile Predictions Survey

http://www.chetansharma.com/MobilePredictions2011.htm

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First things first. From all of us at Chetan Sharma Consulting, we wish you and yours a very happy,

healthy, and prosperous 2011. Thanks to all who participated in our 2011 Mobile Predictions Annual Survey. We have found it is the best way to think about the trends coming our way.

We put some of the questions to our colleagues and industry leaders in the industry. We were able to glean some valuable insights from their choices and comments. This survey is different from some of the others in the sense that it includes industry movers and shakers participation. Executives and insiders (n=225) from leading mobile companies across the value chain and around the world opined to help us see what 2011 might bring.

Ten names were randomly drawn the limited edition Mobile Future Forward book. The winners are:

1. Jared Cornfeld, Industry analyst, FCC

2. Abhi Rele, Marketing, Microsoft

3. Christopher Billich ,Head of Mobile Advertising, Deutsche Telekom AG

4. Gary Cohen, VP/GM North America, Flirtomatic

5. Peter Jarich, Service Director, Current Analysis

6. Darren Austin, Director of Mobile, Expedia

7. Craig Fisher, Software Client Leader, IBM

8. Steve Wood, CEO, Perlego Systems, Inc.

9. Elliott Hamilton, Sr. Director of Strategic Planning, TeleCommunication Systems

10. Vishal Gupta, Vice President North America, Qualcomm Inc

Thanks again to everyone who contributed. We will be calling on you again next year. We are clearly

living in "interesting times" with never a dull moment in our dynamic industry. It has been a terrific

year for us here at Chetan Sharma Consulting and we are looking forward to 2011 and seeing many of

you along the way. We hope you enjoyed gaining from the collective wisdom.

Be well, Do Cool Work, Stay in touch.

Thanks. With warm wishes,

Your feedback is always welcome.

Thanks.

Chetan Sharma

Now onto the 2011 Mobile Industry Predictions Survey Results

The panel comprised of movers and shakers of the mobile industry from around the world.

What will be the biggest stories of 2011?

In last year’s survey, Google/Android narrowly missed out to be the biggest story of the year but this year, the verdict was clear that Google will continue to dominate the headlines with Android devices and new updates and apps. Given that we are in the midst of 4G deployments and ITU’s flipflop on the definition, we could be in for an interesting year.

When will Verizon iPhone launch?

Inordinate amount of ink has been spilt over Verizon’s iPhone speculation. However, given the chatter, our panel voted for a Q1 launch.

Who will be the most open player in the mobile ecosystem in 2011?

In all our surveys Google has consistently cemented its perception of being the most open in the ecosystem.

Will Android tablet sales exceed iOS tablet sales in 2011?

Last year, Android OS edged past iOS, however, given the lead iOS has had in tablets, it might be hard to overcome the number of shipments in 2011.

Who will make the biggest mobile acquisition in 2011?

Got Cash? Big players are likely to go shopping but who will score the blockbuster deal of the year. Google and Microsoft will duke it out with Google taking the spoils.

How will the "Apps vs. Mobile Web" debate shape up in 2011?

Apps vs Mobile Web has been as hotly debated in the industry as the CDMA vs. GSM battles of the past. Our panel thought Apps will continue to grow though mobile web starts to show its muscle.

By how much will the mobile advertising ad-spend increase in 2011?

Our panel was more bullish on mobile advertising than last year with a good 50% of respondents aiming for 200% growth and higher.

Which market will be the biggest infrastructure in 2011 for sales opportunities?

India and China are laying out 3G and North America is expanding on 4G. Infrastructure contracts abound.

Who will be the mobile come back story of 2011?

Many long-time players are under the gun this year. Will Windows 7 help Microsoft or will Meego make Nokia competitive. Story will unfold this year.

Who will end up having the strongest position in the mobile payment/commerce space?

While Japan/Korea markets have developed mature mobile payments solutions, the battle royale of mobile payments in North America will play out between the financial guys and Operators with Internet players making a strong run at it as well. 2011 might help decide the long-term winners in the space. Our panel thinks, the likes of Mastercard and Visa will edge out others in the tussle.

Which areas will feel the most impact from Regulators in 2011?

Regulators can have a huge impact on the course of the industry and nation’s competitiveness. With the laws all but laid out, the real rulings might come from the courts.

Which solutions will gain the most traction for managing mobile data broadband consumption?

2010 saw the emergence of tiered data pricing in North America and operators all over the world are bracing for a long-term challenge of managing mobile data growth. We have written extensively on this subject in our Yottabyte series. Our panel voted for Tiered pricing and 4G as the top two solutions.

Which category will generate the most data revenues in 2011?

Global markets are quite different and while data service revenues have been growing in all regions, our panel breaks down by categories in terms of expected contribution from various segments.

What will help mobile cloud computing gain traction in 2011?

Mobile Cloud Computing is expected to take several strides in 2011 with Media and Enterprise demand at the forefront.

What will be the most successful non-mobile phone category in 2011?

As we have highlighted in our previous research, Connected devices have shown tremendous growth in 2010. Tablet seems to be clear category winner.

What will be the breakthrough category in mobile in 2011?

Mobile payments and commerce are starting to take off and are expected to show the most growth in 2011.

By the end of 2011, how will we end up defining 4G?

ITU’s flipflop means, anything above HSPA+ will be deemed a 4G technology.

Which enterprise segment will mobile impact the most?

Mobile as a platform is booming with Retail finally getting into the swing of things and will show the most activity in 2011.

What will be the dominant revenue model for apps in 2011?

While paid apps dominated the revenue stream in the early days, advertising and in-app payments are taking off on iOS and Android. Developers will play with a combination of models depending on what works on a given platform.

What mode of mobile payments will get traction in NA and WE in 2011?

Operators experimented with mobile payments over the last few years, now is the time to put the solutions to the test.

Who was the mobile person of the year?

Who can compete with King Jobs. Launching iconic devices year after another, Steve Jobs has set the direction of the industry since 2007 and was a clear favorite for the mobile person of the year. The tremendous success of the apps personified by blockbuster hit of "Angry Birds" took away the second spot with Andy Rubin’s Android effort won him the third spot.

Well, there you have it. The top trends and stories we will be talking about in 2011. Thanks again for all who participated and we hope that you found this useful as you embark on your journey for the year.

We will be keeping a close eye on the trends in the wireless data sector in our blog, twitter feeds, future research reports, and articles. The next US Wireless Data Market update will be released in Mar 2011. The next Global Wireless Data Market update will be issued in Mar 2011.

Disclaimer: Some of the companies mentioned in this paper are our clients.

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2012 Mobile Industry Predictions Survey January 3, 2012

Mobile Breakfast Series – Mobile 2012: Trends and Opportunities December 15, 2011

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State of the Global Mobile Industry – Half Yearly Assessment 2011 July 7, 2011

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The Prize

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New Paper: Mobile Cloud Computing May 25, 2011

New Research: Competition and the Evolution of Mobile Markets April 28, 2011

Mobile Breakfast Series – The Universe of Connected Devices

US Mobile Data Market Update Q4 2010 and 2010 February 28, 2011

2011 Mobile Predictions Survey Results January 3, 2011

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New Research Paper: The ABCs of SMB Transformation: Apps, Broadband, and the Cloud May 6, 2013

Introduction

Mobile World Congress 2013 Recap March 6, 2013

2013 Mobile Industry Predictions Survey January 2, 2013

Mobile Future Forward 2012 Update - Connected Universe. Monetizing Opportunities. June 25, 2012

Mobile Breakfast Series Recap – Atlanta – Connected Devices, Cloud, and Consumer June 24, 2012

CTIA Wireless 2012 Recap May 14, 2012

Global Mobile Market Update 2012 (Annual Edition) April 30, 2012

Mobile Patents Landscape – An In-depth Quantitative Analysis April 17, 2012

Mobile Internet 3.0: How Operators Can Become Service Innovators and Drive Profitability February 23, 2012

2012 Mobile Industry Predictions Survey January 3, 2012

Mobile Breakfast Series – Mobile 2012: Trends and Opportunities December 15, 2011

US Wireless Data Market Update Q3 2011 December 12, 2011

New Paper - How Mobile Will Change The Way We Spend – A Mobile Future Forward Paper August 5, 2011

Executive Summary

State of the Global Mobile Industry – Half Yearly Assessment 2011 July 7, 2011

Mobile Future Forward Student Paper Contest June 15, 2011

The Event

The Contest

The Prize

2010 Student Paper Contest

New Paper: Mobile Cloud Computing May 25, 2011

New Research: Competition and the Evolution of Mobile Markets April 28, 2011

Mobile Breakfast Series – The Universe of Connected Devices

US Mobile Data Market Update Q4 2010 and 2010 February 28, 2011

2011 Mobile Predictions Survey Results January 3, 2011

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