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Global Wireless Data Market Update 2007 March 27, 2008

Posted by chetan in : AORTA, Infrastructure, Carriers, Security, Speaking Engagements, M&A, 3G, Partnership, Devices, Mobile Advertising, US Wireless Market, Mobile Content, Mobile Entertainment, Mergers and Acquisitions, Location based Services, MVNO, Indian Wireless market, India, BRIC, WiMax, Mobile Gaming, Networks, ARPU, Japan wireless market, European wireless market, Mobile TV, mobile users, Mobile Applications, Worldwide Wireless Market, Mobile Usability, Mobile Ecosystem, Speech Recognition, Mobile Search, Wi-Fi, Wireless Value Chain, 4G, CTIA , 7 comments

Global Wireless Data Market Update 2007

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http://www.chetansharma.com/globalmarketupdate2007.htm

As you read this End of Year (EOY) 2007 Global Wireless Data Market update this week, somewhere in India, a new subscription will catapult India over the US as the number 2 global wireless market. 2007 was a banner year for global wireless data market. The global service revenues for the year touched $700 billion, the data service revenues were more than $120 billion, China signed its 500 millionth subscription, and both India (in feb 08) and the US crossed the 250 million subscription mark. 2007 continued to enhance mobile data’s role in the operator ecosystem with approx 17% of the revenue is coming from data services.

For some leading operators, data is now contributing up to 35% of the revenues however increase in data ARPU is not completely offsetting the drop in voice ARPU. From the true and tested SMS messaging to new services such as Mobile TV, Enterprise apps, and others, different services helped in adding billions to the revenues generated for 2007. Japan and Korea remain the envy of the global markets and the countries to study and learn from w.r.t. new services and applications. The US market has been steadily making strong comeback and for the first time exceeded Japan in service revenue generated from mobile data.

Chetan Sharma Consulting conducted its semiannual study on the global mobile data industry. We studied wireless data trends in over 40 major countries - from developed and mature markets such as Japan, Korea, UK, and Italy to hyper growth markets such as China and India. This note summarizes the findings from the research.

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

Disclosure: Some of the companies mentioned in this note are our clients.

US Wireless Market Update - 4Q07 and 2007 March 10, 2008

Posted by chetan in : AORTA, Strategy, Carriers, M&A, 3G, Devices, Mobile Advertising, US Wireless Market, Mobile Content, Mobile Entertainment, Mergers and Acquisitions, Location based Services, MVNO, Indian Wireless market, India, BRIC, WiMax, Mobile Gaming, Japan wireless market, European wireless market, Mobile TV, Mobile Applications, Smart Phone, Worldwide Wireless Market, Mobile Usability, Mobile Ecosystem, Microsoft Mobile, Mobile Search, Wireless Value Chain, 4G , 3 comments

US Wireless Market Update - 4Q07 and 2007

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http://www.chetansharma.com/usmarketupdateq407.htm

The US wireless data market grew 55% in 2007 ending the year with $24.5 billion in data services revenues with 4Q yielding $6.9B. 2007 also saw significant industry milestones like: iPhone launch, US crossing 250 million subscriptions, 3G penetration in the US touching 25% subscriber base, consternation around 700 MHz spectrum auction, MediaFLO launch, Android launch, Nokia crossing 40% market share, WiMAX and Femto Cell trials, and much more. US almost equaled Japan in mobile data service revenues for the year (rounding error and currency fluctuation difference). With several significant launches coming up in 2008, US remains one of the most attractive wireless data markets.

Global update

          More details in our worldwide wireless data market update coming out later this month.

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

Stanford University Program - Future of Indian Mobile Value Added Services (MVAS) Market December 8, 2007

Posted by chetan in : AORTA, Carriers, Speaking Engagements, 3G, Mobile Advertising, US Wireless Market, Mobile Content, Mobile Entertainment, Mergers and Acquisitions, Indian Wireless market, India, BRIC, WiMax, Mobile Gaming, ARPU, Japan wireless market, Unified Messaging, Messaging, Mobile TV, Mobile Applications, Smart Phone, Worldwide Wireless Market, Mobile Usability, Mobile Ecosystem, Speech Recognition, Mobile Search, Wi-Fi, Wireless Value Chain, 4G , 15 comments

Stanford University Program - Future of Indian Mobile Value Added Services (MVAS) Market

Stanford University hosted a program focused on the Indian Wireless Market – Why Mobile?, Why India?, Why Now? Under the tutelage of Prof. Tom Kosnik of Stanford, Graduate Student Mohit Gundecha and BDA worked on a study looking at the Mobile Value Added Services (MVAS) market in India and presented their research at the event along with the release of their in-depth report on the subject. Prof. Kosnik started the evening by giving a presentation on his Global Leaders Entrepreneurs and Altruists Network (GLEAN) initiative. This was followed by a keynote from Jeffrey Belk, SVP Strategy and Market Development, Qualcomm (sponsor for the event) providing an overview of mobile growth in emerging and developing markets. The evening ended with a panel discussion on the opportunities and challenges of the MVAS space. This note summarizes the discussion from the event and our random musings on the market.

The panelists for the discussion were:

(above L to R)

Eric Allen, VP, FunMobility (Moderator)

Ashok Narsimhan, Chairman and CEO, July Systems,

Ojas Rege, VP, Global Mobile Products, Yahoo!,

Vin Dham, Executive Managing Director, NEA-IndoUS Ventures,

myself, and 

Niren Shah, Managing Director, Norwest Venture Partners,

It was an honor to be part of this discussion.

First, let’s do the numbers. As we have reported in our previous research notes, India’s growth has been going through the roof. We are likely to end up with over 80M net-add (subscriptions) for the year taking the overall tally to 232M. In the last 5 months, India has added more subs than China. By early April, Indian Market will cross US as the number 2 wireless market in the world. China remains untouchable with over 500M subs. Indian Government is targeting 500M subs by 2010. So, what does this all mean?

Couple of points on the numbers – Just like in other prepaid markets especially Europe, there is a lot of double counting of subs. Many of the unused SIMs are still being counted so the number of “actual” subscribers is less than the numbers that are generally discussed for the market. Secondly, the new subs that are being added are primarily voice subs and hence ARPU (esp. data ARPU is steadily going down for the market. Overall ARPU is approximately $8-9 with 8-9% from data services (where P2P SMS still dominates). Despite low ARPUs, operator margins remain good. The overall MVAS market is close to $1B. The revenue splits are approx 60% for the operators, 20% for the aggregator and rest for the developer and content owner.

Mobile Advertising Market in India – Having looked at the mobile advertising space in depth for our upcoming book, we found the Indian market one of the most active esp. in coming up with interesting business models both operator driven as well as new startups. One of the first in-application mobile advertising services was launched by Reliance, they have several other interesting programs in place that cater to the advertising industry. One of the mobile advertising campaigns that we discuss in the book generated over 21M impressions and won the Cannes award. Companies like mGinger have come up with simple pyramid viral scheme to use SMS mobile advertising. As Admob numbers indicate, the number of impressions are second only to the US market despite low penetration. Finally, operators in India are quite innovate when it comes to integrating the back-end for triple and quad-play unlike their western counterparts who have primarily focused on bill-integration vs. service and application integration.

So, who is actually making money? Clearly the most amount of money is in the infrastructure-related items. Infrastructure is something that is absolutely needed to expand and though the margins shrink quite a bit, it is somewhat made up in volumes. Unless you have unique Intellectual Property that creates barriers to entry, software and/or content companies haven’t had much luck (similar to the trends in China) as the local competition is stiff. Overseas companies who jump in without understanding the market lured by the growing numbers are destined to be surprised.

Cricket, Bollywood, and Education remain the top categories for MVAS apps. Panelists were bullish on new MVAS applications and services around UGC, LBS, high-end segmentation, and enterprise applications. Everyone agreed that the next couple of years are primarily for educating the market and subscription acquisition and it will take another 2-3 years for the MVAS to mature and take off. Unless you are in for the long haul, tread carefully. This market is not for the faint-hearted. IP issues can pose significant risks and challenges.

Jeff thought 3G rather than WiMAX will drive growth in the Indian Market, while Vin suggest Fixed WiMAX is going to be significant. I think the primary use of WiMAX will be to provide Internet connectivity to desktops and laptops and for backhaul of backend systems.

We kind of joked that Indian market might become the second largest market for iPhones within a few months given the pace of unlocked phone shipment to the region.

A question was asked how is working with operators in India different, if at all? Apart from a larger value chain share, things are quite similar. Indian operators do exhibit the desire to move fast and they can take an app to the market quite rapidly where some of their western brethren can keep trialing forever.

You can access the released report here.

You can watch the video from the panel discussion here (Part I, Part II, you can access other videos from the evening on the same page).

Prof. Kosnik and Mohit are launching a new program called “Mobile Momentum” to create an ongoing dialog between Silicon Valley companies and the vibrant mobile industry in Asia. I have signed on as the founding member of the advisory board and look forward to working with entrepreneurs and companies on both sides of the pacific to share thoughts, research, and best practices.

If you would like to receive my slides from the event, please let me know.

2008 promises to be even more exciting than 07. Happy Holidays.

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

US Wireless Data Market Update - 4Q06 and 2006 March 4, 2007

Posted by chetan in : AORTA, Carriers, Middleware, Speaking Engagements, 3G, Devices, Mobile Advertising, US Wireless Market, Mobile Content, Mobile Entertainment, Mergers and Acquisitions, MVNO, Indian Wireless market, India, BRIC, WiMax, ARPU, Japan wireless market, Messaging, European wireless market, Mobile TV, Mobile Applications, Smart Phone, Worldwide Wireless Market, Mobile Usability, Mobile Ecosystem, Wireless Value Chain, 4G, CTIA , 1 comment so far

US Wireless Data Market Update - 2006

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US Wireless Data Market update – 4Q06 and 2006

Global update (more details in our worldwide data market update coming out soon)

2007 – Early signs

Your comments are always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

India net-adds cross 6M mark October 12, 2006

Posted by chetan in : Indian Wireless market, India, BRIC, ARPU , 1 comment so far

India might have overtaken China in net adds this month (still need to verify the numbers from China for Sept). During September 2006, 6.07 million wireless subscribers were added while wireline subscribers declined by 0.12 million at the end of September 2006 resulting in net increase of 5.95 million subscribers as compared to almost similar net additions of 5.94 million during August 2006.

The total subscriber base stands at approx 130M subs, meaning India has already added over 56M subs this year and is likely to double the number from its 2005 levels.

Worldwide Wireless Data Trends - Mid Year Update 2006 August 31, 2006

Posted by chetan in : AORTA, Carriers, Enterprise Mobility, 3G, Devices, Mobile Advertising, US Wireless Market, Mobile Content, Mobile Entertainment, International Trade, MVNO, Indian Wireless market, India, BRIC, WiMax, ARPU, Japan wireless market, European wireless market, Mobile TV, Mobile Applications, Worldwide Wireless Market, Mobile Ecosystem, Microsoft Mobile, Mobile Search , 1 comment so far

Download white paper - Worldwide Wireless Data Trends (doc, 320 kb)

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This research note summarizes the wireless data trends in over 40 countries and the analysis of over 30 prominent operators.

Your comments are always welcome.

See you at CTIA.

India - Driving the Next Phase of Global (Wireless) Expansion July 24, 2006

Posted by Chetan in : AORTA, Strategy, Carriers, Enterprise Mobility, 3G, Devices, Mobile Content, Mobile Entertainment, International Trade, Indian Wireless market, India, WiMax, Mobile Gaming, Networks, ARPU , add a comment

the article is online now http://www.chetansharma.com/India_July06.pdf

India crosses 100M subscriber mark June 9, 2006

Posted by Chetan in : Uncategorized, India , add a comment

First reported in our report last month, India wireless industry crosses 100M subscriber mark and gunning for the Russian market figures now.