Mobile Industry Predictions 2009 January 1, 2009
Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, CTIA, Carriers, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Gaming, Indian Wireless Market, Infrastructure, Intellectual Property, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, M&A, MVNO, Mergers and Acquisitions, Microsoft Mobile, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Gaming, Mobile Search, Mobile TV, Mobile Usability, Mobile Users, Mobile Wallet, Music Player, Privacy, Speaking Engagements, Strategy, US Wireless Market, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 3 commentsMobile Industry Predictions 2009
http://www.chetansharma.com/MobilePredictions2009.htm
First things first. From all of us at Chetan Sharma Consulting, wish you and yours a very happy and prosperous 2009.
Before we get into what’s to come, let’s do a quick wrap-up of the year that was.
While 2007 was remembered as “the year of the iPhone,” in 2008, though iPhone and Appstore again dominated the headlines as “Touch” became the new black, iPhone shared the spotlight with Android and the resurgent RIM. The deafening roar of “Openness” that started to bubble up during Q407 permeated the ecosystem in 2008. Responding to the iPhone, OEMs raced to introduce Touch phones - Instinct, Armani, Storm, N2, Glimmer, Vu, G1, Diamond, Dare, N97, 5800, and others.
Apple reached its 10M goal a full quarter early and Gphone’s 1M number was impressive. The Clearwire deal was consummated though it meanders through the clouds of uncertainty. Blyk continued to defy expectations. We made significant headway in energizing the mobile advertising sub segment but the tough problems of privacy, education, control, fragmentation, and user experience remain. LBS picked up steam and mobility started to get into the alternate consumer device universe which with the help of Amazon kindle and PNDs have started a new chain of AORTA devices.
In terms of actual numbers, the mobile industry exceeded 1 Trillion USD in revenues for the first time with services revenue making up 80% of the mix and 20% being contributed by infrastructure, handsets, and misc. Several operators are now exceeding $2B/quarter in data revenues.
Several subscription milestones throughout the year: 50% penetration, almost 4B worldwide, 600M China, 300M India. India and China both added more than 100M subs in 2008. As expected, 3G crossed the inflection point in the western markets (30%+ penetration) while in Korea and Japan, it was getting hard to find people without 3G (85%+ penetration). Mobile web penetration is above 25% and is becoming quite significant.
Thanks to the iPhone, we seem to have settled on sub-$200 smartphones with race to $150 and $100 on the cards. Flat-rate data subscriptions went above 10% in the western markets. Over 20% of the global service revenues are not dependent on data while non-SMS revenues surged past 40%. With the advent of Femto and UMA, we might see a new front in the battle for the digital home, esp. as bundling and quad-play offers become common place and convergence starts to take different shapes, forms, and business models. Carriers are starting to worry about mobile data usage and looking for alternate strategies and business models. Chinese OEMs started to become more dominant and started to win some major accounts. Don’t be surprised by a major acquisition by them in 09.
Among other events of significance: Mobile TV continued to suffer from highpricendititis, Helio shut down, China and India delayed 3G, WM got updated as MS got behind, Yahoo cemented some impressive operator deals as GYM got more active in mobile, Microsoft entangled Yahoo in a mating dance, Mobile Open got into the industry physce, 700 MHz auction drama ensued, Beijing Olympics rocked, SMS handed the presidency to Obama, Whitespaces and FCC tangled, LTE dominated, UMB died, Admob exponentiated, M&A slowed, IP scuffles continued, over 1.2B new devices shipped, Nokia sold more than 100M devices in each quarter, Samsung surged, Motorola pondered, AT&T iJoyed, Vodafone said Namaste India, US edged past Japan in mobile data revenues, DoCoMo continued to dominate the mobile data revenues rankings, India edged past US in total mobile subscribers, Mobile Facebook spread, Twitter tweeped, Symbian went open source, Sequoia panicked, INQ launched, Economy tanked, WalMart started selling iPhone, Palm got a lifeline, Change was in the air.
We covered these is much detail in our regular industry research notes, books, whitepapers, blog posts, speeches, panels, and more. Look forward to continuing the conversation this year.
2009 will also be a pretty eventful year from several perspectives: business models, user experience and expectations, ecosystem posturing, disruption, and friction. How are things going to shape up? What will be hot and what will fade into oblivion? How will competition shape up the new sub-segments?
We put some of the questions to our colleagues 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 industry movers and shakers participate. Executives and insiders (n=200) from leading mobile companies across the value chain and around the world opined to help us see what 2009 might bring.
Six names were randomly drawn for one of our three books released in 2008 (Mobile Advertising, Enterprise Mobility and Wireless Broadband)
The winners are:
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Akio Orii, CFO and VP, Toyota
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Declan Carew, New Product Strategy Manager, Vodafone
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Helen Keegan, Consultant, Beep Marketing
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Rich Begert, CEO, Singlepoint, and
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Russ McGuire, VP, Sprint Nextel
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Jonathan Ebinger, General Partner, Blue Run Ventures
Congrats and Thank You.
Now onto the survey results. The makeup of the respondents below:
Will we see a pull-back in mobile data spending globally/in the US?
The wireless data industry has been somewhat unharmed so far (though OEMs and Infrastructure providers are bearing the brunt of the economic storm). Flat rate pricing, smartphones, 3G networks, better UX are all helping in the continued surge of mobile data consumption and hence revenues. Most expect that though we might see some scaling back in mobile data spending, overall, the growth will continue. The global markets will be slightly better off than the US.
Will Android handset sales exceed iPhone’s in 2009?
The overwhelming majority thought that iPhone will continue to dominate Android in 2009 though 2010 could be a different story. Android has had a good start and if the number of handsets keep on increasing with more carriers carrying it in more countries, Android might not exceed but can come awfully close.
Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who will be the most open of them all?
“OPEN” was the biggest buzzword of 2008 though it means different things to different people. Almost everyone thinks, Google is likely to set the agenda on “open” for others to follow.
Will Apple launch new iPhone models in 2009?
The answer is yes but will they be just minor upgrades or shake-the-market new models. With Android, Nokia, and RIM breathing down its neck, Apple will need more than just upgrades to maintain the limelight.
Will Mobile Advertising see a rise in ad-spend in 2009?
There might be some slow down but mobile advertising ad-spend will keep on increasing. Targeting capability is increasing and CPMs are coming down making for a more efficient mobile channel for advertising. In our own work, we have seen brands fall into two camps: one who are scaling down on inefficient channels like print and radio and moving money into digital including mobile and the others who don’t have quite the appetite for mobile and want to keep investing in channels that they are most familiar with.
Will India and China launch nationwide 3G in 2009?
After many years of delay, the two powerhouses set to launch 3G in 2009. China with TD-SCDMA/WCDMA and India with WCDMA are set to doll out some of the largest contracts seen in the industry.
Will Mobile Payments get any traction in North America and Western Europe?
The plans for mobile payments launch will get pulled back a bit due to the economic crisis. Limited rollouts and trials to continue. Some progress will be made in international mobile remittances.
Will Microsoft launch its own mobile phone?
Will they, Won’t they? How can they not? The probability increased from last year for an Mphone coming to a store near you. But, with the boeingification of Microsoft, it is hard to get any decisions to the market quickly.
Will Clearwire meet the 1.3 million subscriber target in 2009?
The economic climate might force slow-down of expansion and thus the optimistic subscriber forecasts could be impacted.
Will Mobile Open Source mitigate fragmentation?
Not a clear cut answer. Depends on how other versions of Android phones do in the market and if the application development remains a challenge across the Android and Symbian family of devices.
Will cable companies make a major play in wireless in 2009?
Quad-Play is the name of the game. Cable companies have invested half-heartedly thus far. 2009 might be the year they move in aggressively.
Will Microsoft buy RIM?
RIM has become too big and powerful to be consumed by Microsoft easily but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Will Obama’s administration have a major impact on network neutrality and open networks debate?
Not a priority for now. No high expectations, just regular bureaucratic grind.
Will carriers start launching Apple/Android style appstores?
Opinions remain divided. I think most are tempted to build but will outsource the development.
Will Microsoft make windows mobile free to OEMs?
Android (and to some extent Symbian) has pushed Microsoft in a corner. Will it preempt the demise of its pricing strategy? Reduction in price might be the safest bet at this time.
Will the smartphone penetration hit the inflection point in the western markets?
We are getting to that inflection point. 2009 seems to be the year with major implications for the ecosystem.
Will UMA/Femtocells cement their place in the mobile ecosystem?
As 3G networks get burdened by data usage, carriers will look to making UMA and Femtocells as a critical piece of their network strategy
Will consumer privacy and data security rise to be one of the important issues of 2009?
Privacy? What Privacy? Another celebrity mishap might pull this issue to the front burner.
Despite conventional wisdom, what will not happen in 2009?
There were many. Sampling - Microsoft will not buy Yahoo. US Cellular will not be sold. Global economy will not recover in 2009. LTE won’t be commercially deployed. India and China will struggle to get substantial progress with 3G. Motorola will not breakup. Nortel will not disappear. 2009 won’t be the year of mobile advertising.
It is hard to cover the mobile industry in 20 questions. As pointed out by our panelists, there are a number of other issues and opportunities that will help shape our ecosystem - monetization of social networks, the fight for mobile advertising dollars, continued impact of globalization, security and privacy, NFC, IMS, VoIP, enterprise apps beyond email, battery improvements, new interaction modalities, health risks of RF radiation, OpenSocial, GF/FB Connect, Comes with Music, Mobile Widgets, Mobile 3.0, LTE, MIDs, Off-portal, Embedded Mobile, M2M, and others.
However, be rest assured, we will be tracking these and much more throughout the year and sharing them through various channels.
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 2009 and seeing many of you along the way.
Your feedback is always welcome.
Thanks.
Chetan Sharma
Disclaimer: Some of the companies mentioned in this note are our clients.
New Book: Enterprise Mobility: Applications, Technologies and Strategies August 24, 2008
Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, Carriers, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, IP, IP Strategy, Indian Wireless Market, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, MVNO, Mergers and Acquisitions, Messaging, Microsoft Mobile, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Gaming, Mobile Search, Mobile TV, Mobile Usability, Mobile Users, Mobile Wallet, Networks, Patent Strategies, Patent Strategy, Patents, Privacy, Smart Phones, Strategy, US Wireless Market, Unified Messaging, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 2 comments
Enterprise Mobility: Applications, Technologies and Strategies
IOS Press
Chapter Contribution
“Enterprise mobile product strategy using scenario planning”
SAMIMUNEER (SAP) and CHETANSHARMA
http://www.chetansharma.com/enterprise_mobility_scenario_planning.htm
Each year, we work on strategies and product plans for our clients around the world that end up touching millions of consumers worldwide and do behind-the-scenes research, due-diligence, and analysis work on several critical deals and transactions that move our industry forward. But, rarely do we talk or write about them, due to obvious reasons.
However, last year, I got an opportunity to briefly write about some of the strategy work. On the request of Dr. Basole at Georgia Tech, my colleague Sami Muneer (Sr. Director, Enabling Solutions at SAP – responsible for all things mobile) and I drew from some of the long-term strategy and product planning work we had done for SAP to put together a paper on “Enterprise mobile product strategy using scenario planning.” SAP is the leading global enterprise player and their view of the world is both comprehensive and long-term. It was a privilege to work with their global team on the project.
Our paper is being published as a chapter in the just released book “Enterprise Mobility: Applications, Technologies and Strategies” (IOS Press, Amsterdam. 272 pages, Editor R. Basole, 2008) as part of The Tennenbaum Institute Series on Enterprise Systems. The chapter is also being published in the special issue of peer-reviewed International Knowledge Systems Management (IKSM) journal published by Georgia Tech.
The book is a collection of 13 chapters from academics and practitioners in enterprise mobility. I often use scenario planning techniques when doing long-term strategic assessment and forecasting. In this chapter, we hope to provide a framework for scenario planning in mobile that can go across verticals, applications, and services.
You can download the chapter here.
IKSM is making available all the chapters online (for free) if you register for a free one year subscription.
For those interested in reading the paper copy can order the book here.
Book Introduction
As the number of enterprises using mobile ICT increases, it becomes imperative to have a more complete understanding of what value and impact enterprise mobility has, what drives and enables it, and in what ways it can and will transform the nature and practices of work, organizational cultures, business processes, supply chains, enterprises, and potentially entire markets. Enterprise mobility is therefore a topic of great interest to both scholars and practitioners. Enterprise Mobility: Researching a new paradigm aims to contribute to and extend both our theoretical and practical understanding of enterprise mobility by exploring the necessary strategic, technological, and economic considerations, adoption and implementation motivators and inhibitors, usage contexts, social implications, human-centered design issues, support requirements, and transformative impacts. The main objective is to discuss applications, technologies, strategies, theories, frameworks, contexts, case studies, and analyses that provide insights into the growing reality of enterprise mobility for scholars and practicing managers. This volume contains thirteen articles from leading scholars and practitioners and includes an examination of the changing nature of work, work practices, and the work environment; a discussion of critical enablers of enterprise mobility; authors exploring strategic considerations; and insightful case studies of enterprise mobility across multiple domains. Together, the articles explore enterprise mobility across the entire continuum.
Enterprise mobile product strategy using scenario planning
Author(s): Sami Muneer and Chetan Sharma
The Mobile industry is changing at a rapid pace and so is the behavior of enterprise workforce which uses mobile technologies. When planning for a long-term product roadmap, one has to consider a myriad of evolution trends and forecasts to determine the probable list of product functionality and their introduction timing in the lifecycle of the product. One has to look at the technology trends by market, the competitive landscape, and the mobile worker adoption trends. However, one can only come up with a prioritized list of capabilities by taking into context the company’s own core competencies, skill sets, and overall mission. This paper looks at how mobile product companies can use scenario-planning methodology to formulate their product strategy and roadmap.
The listing of the chapters is as follows:
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Enterprise mobility: Researching a new paradigm
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The convergence of wireless, mobility, and the Internet and its relevance to enterprises
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Business mobility: A changing ecosystem
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A socio-technical perspective of mobile work
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Designing productive spaces for mobile workers: Role insights from network analysis
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Telecommuting and corporate culture: Implications for the mobile enterprise
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User requirements of mobile technology: A summary of research results
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Mobile interaction design: Integrating individual and organizational perspectives
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A comparative anatomy of mobile enterprise applications: Towards a framework of software reuse
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Protecting data on mobile devices: A taxonomy of security threats to mobile computing and review of applicable defenses
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Enterprise mobility and support outsourcing: A research model and initial findings
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Enterprise mobile product strategy using scenario planning
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The strategic value of enterprise mobility: Case study insights
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Exploring enterprise mobility: Lessons from the field
Your feedback is always welcome.
Thanks.
Chetan Sharma
US Wireless Data Market Update - Q2 2008 August 10, 2008
Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, CTIA, Carriers, Devices, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Indian Wireless Market, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, M&A, Mergers and Acquisitions, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Gaming, Mobile Search, Mobile Usability, Smart Phones, Speaking Engagements, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 4 comments
http://www.chetansharma.com/usmarketupdateq208.htm
The US wireless data market grew 40% in Q208 compared to Q207 to reach $8.2B in data revenues. The total for 2008 stands at $15.7B for the first six months, 38% higher than the total for the same time period in 2007. The news of Alltel acquisition, iPhone 3G, and the flat rate pricing wars dominated the news. Though the infatuation for iPhone was a few degrees lower, Apple managed to keep the device front and center of the news cycles. US again exceeded Japan in mobile data service revenues for the quarter and the market is on track to reach $34B in data revenues for 2008.
- The US Wireless data service revenues grew 8.6% Q/Q to $8.2B in Q208. Compared to Q107, the data service revenues grew 40%.
- Overall ARPU increased by $0.46. Average voice ARPU declined by $0.05 while average data ARPU grew by $0.50 or 5%.
- Verizon lead in data ARPU with $12.58 (or 24.41% of the revenues) closely followed by Sprint at $12 (or 21.4354%), AT&T at $11.59 (or 22.91%) and T-Mobile at $8.60 (or 17%).
- The strongest growth in Q208 came from Verizon with 13% increase in data revenues from Q108. Verizon generated an industry record $2.6B in data revenues closely followed by AT&T at $2.5B. Both AT&T and Verizon are on target to exceed $10B in data revenues for the year for the first time by any operator worldwide besides NTT DoCoMo (the two US carriers are already close to 50% of the target). AT&T and Verizon now account for 62% of the market data services revenues. Sprint reversed its decline in data revenues during last quarter to increase its data revenues by 3% in Q208. T-Mobile registered a 5% uptick.
- The average industry % contribution of data to service revenues exceeded 21% and now stands at 21.41%. A year ago, the % contribution stood at approximately 17%.
- The number of data subscribers has been on the rise with Verizon leading the way. At the end of Q208, Verizon had that 49.6M (or 72%) data subscribers. Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile subscribers joined to send over 169 Billion text messages in Q208 translating into almost a message every 2 hours or so. This compared to users in Philippines where average routinely surpasses a message every hour.
- In terms of net-adds, Verizon continued to lead with 1.5M net-adds again edging AT&T by 200K subscribers for the quarter.
- For the first time, T-Mobile USA entered the top 10 rankings of global mobile operators by data revenues replacing SK Telecom which suffered decline for the second straight quarter. In fact, SKT got pushed to the 12th spot by Orange France. The top three US carriers again maintained their respective rankings amongst the top 10 global carriers in terms of data revenues. For the quarter, Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint Nextel stood at #4, 5, and 6 respectively with Verizon and AT&T closing in on China Mobile (2nd) and KDDI (3rd). AT&T and Verizon are in the select group of five global operators who are now generating $2B or more in data revenues/quarter (the other three are NTT DoCoMo, China Mobile, and KDDI).
- Non-messaging continues to grab 50-60% of the data revenues for the US carriers.
- The flat-rate pricing movement that was started by Willcom in Japan which moved to Europe started to enter the US market with industry wide flat-rate pricing plans that included data. Sprint has been the most aggressive with its “Simply Everything” plans that include data services. 30% of its $100 plan is assigned to data revenues (for accounting purposes).
- Q208 saw the blockbuster acquisition of Alltel by Verizon which is likely to close by end of the year. The $28B acquisition will catapult Verizon ahead of AT&T in total number of subscribers by a big margin (10M or so) and make it a leader in almost all major categories.
- There continues to be tremendous activity in the area of Mobile Advertising. AdInfuse, Admob, Amobee, Millennial Media, Nokia, Rhythm New Media, Yahoo, and others ran compelling campaigns. There was also meaningful activity on the carrier front with industry wide initiatives.
- Venture money experienced a decline into the mobile sector. During the first half of the year, private wireless companies announced $1.8B in 173 financings, compared to $2.7B in 209 financings for the same time period last year. (Source: Rutberg)
- Nokia eclipsed 100M unit sale in Q208 for the fifth straight quarter. It sold over 122M handsets in Q208 (out of the total 297M), almost as many as the next four combined. Nokia’s global market share edged past 41%. Samsung at 15%, Motorola with 9.5%, LG with 9.3% and Sony Ericsson with 8% rounded out the top five. For the year, the industry looks to again eclipse the 1 billion handset mark for 2008
- 3G penetration in the US went past 30% in Q208, with Verizon leading the pack with over 60% 3G subscriber penetration compared to 25% 3G subscriber penetration at AT&T. T-Mobile is slowly expanding its 3G coverage. 3G subs have over $23 in data ARPU. These trends are expected and the diffusion of mobile broadband will continue to create new opportunities and revenues for the ecosystem.
- Apple announced a 3G iPhone in June and launched an aggressive expansion plan to reach 70+ countries. The broadband and appstore capabilities are quite attractive to consumers and it shows. VPN and direct access to Exchange will get many more users into the mix and IT folks less apprehensive. The clearcut business model of 30/70 split is also attractive. Apple is likely to announce in Sept (may wait for its quarterly results in Oct) that it has reached the 10M goal for iPhone.
- Feeling the threat from Apple and Google, Nokia bought the remaining portion of Symbian and announced the plan to open-source the OS, making things interesting in the wireless ecosystem. It puts Microsoft on the defensive and will be forced to reduce its licensing fee per device closer to zero. While Apple basked in the glow of iPhone 2.0, Google spent time swatting rumors of Android delay. Giving the changing dynamics in the industry, Google might be forced to play its gPhone hand earlier than it had anticipated.
- After raising $14.5B from friends and family, Clearwire’s net-adds dropped in Q208. It needs to get its content and handset strategy in place in short-order.
- In a sign of convergence battles to come, T-Mobile’s @Home and Sprint’s Femto cell initiatives started to take hold. Cable operators are also aggressively seeking triple-play by providing the wireless component of the service.
Global update
- China and India added approximately 52M subscriptions combined in Q208 with China marginally edging out India. For the year, both countries have added almost identical number of subscriptions (53M). By comparison, US added 7.5M for the same time period.
- NTT DoCoMo continues to dominate the wireless data revenues rankings with almost $3.4B in data services revenue in Q208. Almost 40% of its revenue now comes from data services. DoCoMo also crossed 84% in 3G penetration in Q208 and is expected to cross 90% by early 2009.
- Most of the major carriers around the world have double digit percentage contribution to their overall ARPU from data services. Operators like KDDI, DoCoMo, and O2 UK are consistently topping 30%.
More details in our worldwide wireless data market update in our Global Wireless Data Market Update Sept 2008.
Your feedback is always welcome.
Thanks.
Chetan Sharma
Disclaimer: Some of the companies mentioned in this note are our clients.
Interview with Ravi Venkatesan - Chairman, Microsoft India August 5, 2008
Posted by chetan in : BRIC, Enterprise Mobility, Indian Wireless Market, Mergers and Acquisitions, Microsoft Mobile, Smart Phones, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so farInnovating from, for and with India is our mantra.
PiTech is the premier technology magazine for the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) alums and community. I had the opportunity to interview Ravi Venkatesan - Chairman, Microsoft India for the July 2008 issue of PiTech that celebrates 50 years of IIT Bombay. Below is the interview in its entirety.
You can read the entire issue here.
Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd.
Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman, Microsoft India is responsible for Microsofts marketing, operational and business development efforts in the country. In partnership with the leaders of Microsofts other business units, Venkatesan provides a single point of leadership for the company, playing an integral role in defining Microsofts relationship with policy makers, customers and business partners across Microsofts six distinct business units in India namely: Microsoft Corporation India (Pvt) Ltd, the Marketing Subsidiary, Microsoft India Development Center, Microsoft Global Technical Support Centre, Microsoft Global Development Center India, Microsoft Global Services India and Microsoft Research India.
Prior to joining Microsoft, Venkatesan worked for over seventeen years with Cummins Inc, a US-based designer, manufacturer and distributor of engines and related technologies. He served in various leadership capacities at Cummins including Chairman of Cummins India Limited and Managing Director of Tata Cummins Limited, a joint venture between Cummins Inc. and Tata Motors. His biggest contribution at Cummins was leading the transformation of Cummins in India into the leading provider of power solutions and the largest manufacturer of automotive engines in the country.
Venkatesan has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (1985), an MS in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University (1986) and a MBA from Harvard University (1992) where he was a Baker Scholar. Ravi was awarded Purdue University’s Outstanding Industrial Engineer award for the year 2000 and the Distinguished Alumnus award by the Indian Institute of Technology in 2003.
Venkatesan is a member of the Executive Council of NASSCOM, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), a Director on the Board of Thermax Ltd and a member of the Advisory Council of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and IIIT-Bangalore. He has contributed frequently to the Harvard Business Review and some of his articles include, “Strategic Sourcing - to Make or Not to Make” and “The Strategy that Wouldn’t Travel.”
His interests include reading, travel, classical music and philanthropy.
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What are some of the problems that our industry hasnt solved? Whats holding us back?
At first, in many ways India is the centre of the IT world today and the credit only goes to the huge amount of talent that we have. However, for all the expertise that we have in IT, there is a huge underserved market in India.
The IT uptake in the domestic market has been limited. With all the challenges that lie ahead of us as a nation, are it access to education, or market access for small business or even transparency and accountability in governance, technology has the potential to solve these but we have never really applied ourselves to it. We have largely focused our energies on the global market.
The fact remains, for India to continue the economic growth it has seen in the last three years, it is imperative for us to work towards addressing these issues.
What are the key ingredients of a strategy to outsmart competition?
The only way to stay ahead in the game is to focus on the customer. You have to hear and concentrate on the spoken and unspoken needs of consumer. Take for instance the success Apple has enjoyed with iPod. Its not a technological innovation but a brilliant execution of an innate need of a customer, connecting the device and the online music service, which had never been clearly articulated. Much like the Walkman a few decades ago. Or X Box live. We realized people were not looking to just enjoy the game in their living rooms but also wanted to play with the best of the best, whoever they may be and anywhere they may be. And in addressing that need, we were able to close the gap on Sony.
How can technology companies better understand the needs of customers?
If we can balance the obsession with our products with an obsession for our customers and really listen to them, and listen to them not only before the sale but even post the sale, it will make all the difference.
Simplistic as it may sound, it all boils down to be less internally focused and ensure our people are walking in the shoes of our customers.
How do you see PC computing evolving over the next 5-10 years?
If you look at the emerging new world of work and lifestyle, an always connected environment where users want to access data from wherever and at any time, one can safely talk about the emergence of non PC devices as the center piece of the digital era.
Likewise as technology is increasingly deployed for the next five billion and we think about enabling people in various scenarios, one will have to innovate to enable access for them. That will lead to evolution in the modality of interaction.
For instance, we will need to address issues of language and literacy, which means changes in text user interfaces, vision and speech recognition. Essentially, the devices will be more intelligent. Not only will they recognize our voice, but they’ll recognize our intent, take intelligent actions and follow commands. This means display technology will also have to evolve quite dramatically Concepts like surface computing, automotive computing and mobile computing will really become a big-big phenomenon.
Another interesting dimension will be the integration of TV software & PC software for connected-home consumer experiences across devices. IPTV will become pervasive with the integration of end-to-end multimedia and video solutions.
Needless to say, all of this will be accompanied by a fundamental re-architecting of the microprocessor. As per Moores law, multi-core computers will play a vital role in ushering in supercomputing.
What are some of the key big-picture initiatives at Microsoft?
As we all know, there are Two Indias. One is the global corporate India which is every bit as sophisticated as any other company globally. As productive, efficient and technology savvy as anyone else. And we see ourselves as partners to them and in their growth.
Then there is the other India, to be precise 2/3rd of it which is at the risk of being left behind. Ironically at one level technology can be the divider. But it is also pretty much the most significant bridge to ensure an inclusive socio economic growth for the underserved India.
Over the last couple of years the focus has intensified in three areas and is aligned with the overall national agenda:
At first Investment in human capital both by way of education and skills has been and will continue to be a key focus area. IT is key, both as a subject of study and as the key facilitator in providing affordable access to education and skills.
Secondly, as we work towards addressing the unique scenarios of our country, it is obvious we and the entire ecosystem will need to innovate. We have to create a relevant enabling environment and that requires innovation at all levels.
Last but not the least it is important to sustain the current growth of the Indian economy and create appropriate jobs and opportunities for the growing young population of our country. Again IT plays a dual role of both as a facilitator and a key provider.
And in this commitment to realize the Unlimited Potential, we run several initiatives in the country such as:
Project Shiksha for accelerating IT literacy and enhancing the classroom environment among government schools across the country. We have already covered over 1,10,000 school teachers and impacted the lives of over 4 million students.
Project Bhasha for promoting local language computing wherein we have tried to break down one of the barriers by providing local language interface packs for Microsoft products in 14 Indian languages.
Project Jyoti which provides lifelong learning for adults in rural communities especially women through Community Technology Learning Centers. Run in partnership with NGOs we have already impacted the lives of several women who in many instances have now become bread earners for their families or simply gained social esteem and confidence and are leading examples for womens empowerment in their communities.
Project Vikas to enhance the global competitiveness of the SMEs by IT enablement. Run in partnership with the national manufacturing council it entails a five year action plan to help the Indian SMEs address their soft challenges of market access, knowledge networks and enablement of supply chain linkages in the cluster ecosystem. We have successfully seen the first phase of deployment in three sectors: Tripur (textiles), Pune (auto components) and Ahmedabad (pharmaceuticals)
In addition to all the innovative work we do at our own business units, we also work with the Indian SI, ISV and developer community to build a robust software product ecosystem in India. We are engaged with them to support them on quality, technology roadmap, business skills and mentoring, venture capital funding and provide all the end to end tools to become commercially successful. It is towards our quest of Made in India software.
But at all times we are aware of the need to deliver affordable PC solutions and that is central to our India mission of building a digitally inclusive society. So over and above the special licensing for the government and academic community, we have in place a Good-Better-Best segment approach. Essentially, different SKUs with different levels of functionality and therefore differentiated prices. Good example is Windows Vista Starter Edition, specially designed to spur PC usage in India it is the lowest cost Microsoft offering available today.
Or innovative models of delivery, such as the pay-as-you-go business model enabled by our flex go technology. It uses the familiarity and flexibility of prepaid mobile phones and applies it to personal computer, bringing down the entry barrier of costs for PC ownership.
Like I have said before, Innovation is key. Innovation in product, business models, solutions and services.
What technology (ies) is Microsoft building specifically for India?
India is the only subsidiary outside of the US where Microsoft has an end-to-end presence of its entire product lifecycle right from research to product development to support. The large talent pool is naturally empathetic to the needs and problems of our fellow citizens. Therefore we can explore various technology, tools, solutions and services which are relevant not just to India but all emerging markets. As a result we are Inspired by India we therefore we Innovate for India.
Take the example of Microsoft Research India. It is one of the premier industrial research labs globally and as of March 2007, MSR India had already published more than 60 papers in leading international journals and conferences. While it focuses in areas including Cryptography, Security, Digital Geographics, Mobility and Multilingual Systems, it is the work they do for Emerging Markets is very heart warming.
Take MultiPoint - a simple yet powerful technology which will enable multiple children to share a single PC using multiple mice. For the purposes of primary education, it can multiply the benefit of a single computer by three, four, five, or more.
Equally inspiring is Digital StudyHall (DSH), an independent research project primarily supported by Microsoft Research, which aims to overcome both the problems of staff shortage and availability of standardized study material among underserved communities.
Simply put, it records and distributes DVDs of subject classes led by Indias best grassroots teachers. Underserved areas can access the DSH database via DVDs, while areas that are more developed will be able to access the content via the Internet.
Some other areas it is working on and very relevant to scenarios like India is Text Free User Interface to overcome the language barrier or the Split Screen UIs to multiply benefits for small businesses.
The Microsoft development centre which does end to end product development for Microsoft globally and contributes significantly to all our products, is also incubating technologies which will make computing more, far more intuitive and integrated with entertainment and therefore more compelling and more affordable.
How does India help Microsoft in the Asian markets, Global markets?
India is amongst the fastest growing markets for Microsoft both from a talent perspective and from a market perspective and its no surprise that we are contributing significantly to the revenues and product innovation at Microsoft corp. Our contributions are immense.
Microsoft Research, with over 50 people, is one of the premier industrial research labs globally and as of March 2007, MSR India had already published more than 60 papers in leading international journals and conferences. It focuses in six areas including Cryptography, Security, and Algorithms; Digital Geographics; Mobility Networks, and Systems, Multilingual Systems, rigorous software engineering and emerging markets and is committed to advancing the state of the art computer science research in India. It partners with a number of educational and research institutions in India and abroad to push forward the boundaries of scientific research.
The Microsoft India Development Center (MSIDC) at Hyderabad is fully integrated with the key product families of Microsoft and is the second largest MS software development center outside Redmond. It has more than 1300 employees working on over 50 products and technologies for the global Microsoft portfolio.
Team here have end-to-end responsibility on projects and cover all aspects of software development - Development, Testing and Program Management. Teams work collaboratively with Redmond on future releases of products and are constantly innovating to enhance the user experience. MSIDC is a leader in creating intellectual property from India and has filed for over 130 patents in the last two years.
The Global technical support centre, Microsoft IT and the Global consulting and services centre are also based out of India and are supporting global customers for Microsoft and contributing significantly to Microsoft revenues.
Innovating from, for and with India is our mantra.
Inside the USPTO: A Guide to the Patenting Process April 30, 2008
Posted by chetan in : AORTA, IP, IP Strategy, Intellectual Property, International Trade, M&A, Mergers and Acquisitions, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Patent Strategies, Patent Strategy, Patents, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so farInside the USPTO: A Guide to the Patenting Process
by Carlos Villamar and Chetan Sharma
http://www.chetansharma.com/insidetheuspto.htm
Note: We have an integrated approach to strategy as we strongly believe that taking market research, business, technology, and intellectual property inputs into strategic initiatives is essential in obtaining a long-term sustainable competitive advantage in the industry. To further the dialogue on the subject, we will be publishing several articles, white papers, books, and blog posts over the course of next few months. This white paper is to help entrepreneurs and inventors understand the patenting process.
This white paper was a collaboration with Carlos Villamar, Partner, Roberts Mlotkowski Safran & Cole. Carlos is a patent attorney who has also worked as a patent examiner at the USPTO.
Abstract
Patents are a key corporate asset that can give the inventor and the company an invaluable tool to protect and commercialize inventions. The process of obtaining a patent is an important one from start to finish. Beginning with patent strategy, due-diligence and patent search through the United States Patent Office (USPTO) process to finally getting the grant, one needs to have a good understanding of each step. This increases the probability of success by removing uncertainty from the process. Inside the USPTO: A guide to the patenting process takes a detailed look at the ideation and the patent process, specifically, how patent applications flow through the USPTO. By having a good grasp of the intermediate steps and the various decision points associated with each of them, the paper discusses how entrepreneurs and inventors can maximize their chances of securing a patent.
Introduction
We live in a knowledge economy and Intellectual Property is a key asset in this new ecosystem. Patents are one of the essential elements to creating barriers to entry for rivals, building credibility and confidence of investors, customers, partners, and employees, providing clarity as to the property ownership, demanding leverage from the industry, and for generating revenue from licensing and sale.
The knowledge economy thrives and sustains on ideas and competitive advantage based on intellectual property. For individuals, the prestige associated with being an innovator and first to secure patents in a given field motivates them to be creative and innovative. Entrepreneurs, engineers, and inventors can benefit from understanding how to secure and maintain their intellectual property rights. This paper discusses the important steps in designing, filing, procuring, and defending your patent rights.
The following diagram illustrates at a high-level the patenting process and important considerations in the decision flow chart. The flow chart is discussed in detail in the subsequent sections.
Table of Contents
| Abstract | 3 |
| Introduction | 4 |
| Pre filing due diligence | 6 |
| Patent preparation | 9 |
| USPTO filing | 11 |
| USPTO examination | 13 |
| After approval | 16 |
| Conclusions and Recommendations | 17 |
Download the full white paper here.
Your feedback is always welcome.
CTIA Wireless 2008 Roundup April 4, 2008
Posted by chetan in : 3G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, CTIA, Carriers, Devices, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Indian Wireless Market, Intellectual Property, International Trade, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, M&A, MVNO, Mergers and Acquisitions, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Gaming, Mobile Search, Mobile TV, Smart Phones, Speaking Engagements, Speech Recognition, US Wireless Market, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 3 commentsCTIA Wireless 2008 Roundup
http://www.chetansharma.com/ctiawireless.htm
The Sin City hosted CTIA Wireless 2008 earlier this week. On Wednesday morning, just before leaving for the convention center, I caught some portion of Ben Bernankes congressional testimony on the US economy woes. Few minutes later, strolling the show floor, talking to various companies, and hearing the keynotes, it seemed like I was on a different planet. Either someone failed to deliver the memo or the wireless industry is resilient enough to weather the turmoil in the financial and housing markets with some ease. The show was bigger with more attendees, the booths were returning to their glamorous heydays of the past, and the general buzz and energy at the show all seem to indicate the industry is going to do just fine and is primed for further growth. The general themes were around open network and access, user experience, and bandwidth.
This note summarizes our impressions from the show.
First lets do the numbers: CTIA released their semi-annual statistics on the US market. In summary: For 2007, $23B in data revenues, 2 trillion in MOU, $139B in total service revenues, 48B txt messages/month. (We released our US Market and Global Market updates last month)
Keynotes: In terms of style, Sir Richard Branson stole the show with his pompous exuberance and pep talk (the talk of imaginary flight to Mars was hilarious; investors in Microgin and Viroo must be upset). For substance, Marco Boerries, President, Yahoo Mobile gave a nice compact overview of Yahoo initiatives and products in the market which are pretty darn good. (Marco wrote an opinion piece for our Mobile Advertising Book The future of Advertising is in the Consumers Pockets). Yahoo has sewn together a number of deals worldwide that gives them a potential reach of over 600M users.
Vodafone is one operator which has been quite vocal in stating its positions on future infrastructure roadmap and data opportunities. Arun Sarin is probably the only CEO of major global operator who has publicly stated that Mobile Advertising will constitute a significant portion of their revenues in the coming days (Aruns point person on the initiative Richard Saggers also wrote an opinion piece for our book Opportunities for Mobile Advertising. Let me know if you are interested in reading these two opinion pieces).
Microsofts Robbie Bach had the tough task of following the Branson-fest. He announced the arrival of a full-blown browser (finally!) for windows mobile. Also, the new windows mobile device from Sony Ericsson (Xperia) looks pretty darn cool. FCC Chairman Martin announced the rejection of Skype petition on the carterphone principle (to Skypes dismay, it was not an April fools joke). Clearly, the definition of open is in the eye of the beholder. It means different things to different people. It has also been clear from the various activities and keynotes that the industry is trying its utmost to remain a Self-regulated industry and stay away from the clutches of eager politicians.
Lowell McAdam, CEO of Verizon Wireless conducted a panel with CEOs from Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, and Nortel and probed them on the 4G migration path, trends in applications and services, and contrasts in adoption and introduction of new technology in various parts of the world. Final day was marked by what is now becoming a trend - keynotes from politicians. This time around Sen. Edwards and Sen. Thompson graced the podium.
Mobile Advertising: In talking with numerous players in the value chain from small developers to large operators to ad networks to media companies, the impression was that things have matured over the last six months. It was gratifying to hear that some companies are adopting strategies and recommendations we propose in our book. Still, some of the basic problems remain majority of the inventory remain unsold indicating weak demand, CPM rates are still over-rated though they are starting to come down, and fragmentation continues to remain an issue.
The good news is that the size of the mobile campaign budgets are getting bigger with several seven figure RFPs floating around. While some companies are still trying to throw a lot at the wall in the hope that something sticks, others are maturing as companies and are more focused in their positioning and product roadmaps. Integration of various channels is starting to appear on the horizon and the integration with the publishers is becoming tighter. The issue of measurement and auditing standards remains a big issue and unfortunately not much progress to report. There are carrier initiatives and various industry bodies are taking the challenge to rally the ecosystem, but, frankly, consolidation of such efforts is necessary, we cant afford yet another layer of fragmentation in an already complex ecosystem.
We were interviewed on Mobile Advertising prior to the show by several publications. Some of the articles were published this week to coincide with CTIA
Wireless Wave (CTIA) Moving Targets: Mobile marketing reaches consumers on their terms by Lynn Thorne
BrandWeek Mobile Marketing Fantasy vs. Reality by Ken Hein
Wall Street Journal Personalized promotions: Sending the right ads to your phone Peggy Anne Salz
NFC: There were many more NFC-enabled devices on display this time and vendors were talking and demoing NFC and Biometrics based payment solutions. While there are handsets on the roadmap, this market is still very nascent in North America and Western Europe.
Inspiration: The inspiration for new and creative services still comes (at least for yours truly) from Japan (and Korea). I love spending time in DoCoMos booth for it gives a glimpse into whats to come. No other company better understands the development of devices, services and applications that overlay on lifestyles than DoCoMo (e.g. a wellness handset that is a pedometer, heart rate monitor, body and bad breath monitor and yes, you can make voice calls too). They view wireless air-interfaces as nothing more than enablers to solutions that enhance daily lives. Various device manufacturers also displayed some really cool devices. The quality and diversity of handsets that have been introduced into the global markets over the last four quarters is just astonishing. The cycle of innovation and time-to-market keeps on accelerating.
Femto Cells: A number of players like Airwalk, Airvana, and others are bringing Femto cell solutions to the market and carriers are starting to pull this into their strategy as well and look forward to deployments beyond the trials.
4G: LTE vs. WiMAX (vs. UMB): Since the decision of Vodafone and Verizon to support LTE, UMB has been disappearing from the discussion. The 4G discussion is convulsing around LTE and WiMAX now (though Nortel did indicate its support TD-SCDMA as a 4G candidate). Without a doubt the operator community is rallying behind LTE and there might be an opportunity to finally converge to a single standard (havent we seen this movie before) but frankly, the advances in silicon to integrate multiple radios has made the standards debate less relevant. WiMAX has forced acceleration of LTE standardization process but is starting to lose its time (and cost) advantage. All eyes are on Sprints XOHM business rollouts in the coming days and months.
Accessories: I have never seen so many accessory and reseller outfits at a CTIA show. Business must be booming.
Best Booth: Thought there were several good layouts, LG and Samsung continue to impress with their creativity and art of marketing.
Developer and Publisher woes: Along with John Philips (Astraware) and Peter Baldwin (Cellmania), I helped facilitate a few developer session at the Mobile Jam Session organized by WIP. The issues of distribution, discovery, and monetization remain challenging for the small developers worldwide. Even with million user base, they are finding it difficult to monetize but we did discuss a number of success stories. The core elements of success that emerged from the discussion were: choosing the right market, embedding viral component into everything you throw out there, there is no room for mediocrity, and personalizing and customizing go a long way to get traction. An interesting tidbit: the number of page views for mobile MySpace app is a magnitude higher on off-deck vs. ondeck. Several of the companies are trying mobile advertising with varying degrees of success. After spending 4 hours with the developers, I sat on a carrier panel discussing mobile advertising. The contrast between the two worlds was so apparent. Clearly, more needs to be done to help both sides understand each other a bit better.
Green CTIA: There is a stronger emphasis on recycling and contributing to save the environment. The show itself is a big resource hog, so every bit helps.
Alternate Mobile Devices: The universe of alternate devices is expanding. Companies are buying wholesale data packages from the operators and integrating broadband chipsets into hardware to do digital signage (ICG), M2M (Sensorlogic), PND and much more. The definition of being mobile keeps on changing.
On Being Open: Obviously, given the recent activity around openness, getting a penny for each time the word was uttered by a speaker would have paid off for a lifetime of CTIA trips. While talk is cheap, demonstrable progress is being made by the likes Yahoo, Apple (btw, 3G iPhone is on its way), and AOL.
Another MVNO experiences turmoil: Movida - a Spanish focused MVNO which has garnered almost 300K subs filed for chapter 11.
Voice is becoming mainstream: With the product launches from Nuance, SpinVox, Vlingo, Jott, Yahoo, and many others, voice based navigation and its tighter integration with data services is becoming mainstream.
Where are the opportunities? Last week, I was moderating a panel with executives from AOL Mobile, T-Mobile, Motricity, and Formotus and the themes that emerged were around platform play, user experience, and productivity. At CTIA, in addition to these areas, there was a lot of discussion around social networking (though the market is being saturated with the MoSo noise). It is also clear that we are moving into the phase of aggregation of fragmentation with initiatives from Yahoo, AOL, and Google dominating the landscape.
Home Screen Effect: I have been talking about using the home screen for driving data usage for the last 8 years. I think we will see good innovation this year on that front starting with Yahoos One Platform. There are several other initiatives in the works where operators and OEMs will be deploying frameworks and technologies to bring information to a click-less idle screen environment.
Overall, no major news but industry stays vibrant, healthy, and exciting.
Your feedback is always welcome.
Chetan Sharma
Disclosure: Some of the companies mentioned in this note are our clients.
Global Wireless Data Market Update 2007 March 27, 2008
Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, CTIA, Carriers, Devices, European Wireless Market, India, Indian Wireless Market, Infrastructure, Intellectual Property, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, M&A, MVNO, Mergers and Acquisitions, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Gaming, Mobile Search, Mobile TV, Mobile Usability, Mobile Users, Networks, Partnership, Speaking Engagements, Speech Recognition, US Wireless Market, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 8 commentsGlobal Wireless Data Market Update 2007
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 datas 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.
- The worldwide markets continue to grow at an explosive pace reaching 3.3B subscriptions by Q407 up 20% from 2006 levels. Significant growth is coming from India and China with both countries registering close to 8-9M net adds per month. India recorded 8.8M net adds in Jan 08 while China added 9.4M in Feb 08. Overall, the world market is at almost 50% penetration.
- US surpassed Japan as the most valuable mobile data market in service revenue with US adding $24.5B vs. $23.2B for Japan in 2007 mobile data service revenues. China with $12.5B was ranked number 3. US registered the highest growth amongst the top 3 with over 55% increase from 2006 levels followed by China at 37% and Japan at 18%. These top 3 markets account for over 50% of the global data service revenues.
- NTT DoCoMo continues to dominate the wireless data service revenues rankings with over $12.13B in service data revenues for 2007 however Q/Q growth has dropped to single digits. DoCoMo crossed 80% in 3G penetration and is expected to touch 90% by end of the year.
- DoCoMo was followed by China Mobile, KDDI, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint Nextel, O2 UK, SK Telecom, Softbank, and China Unicom to round up the top 10 operators by wireless data service revenues. All the top 10 carriers exceeded $3B in data revenues for the year.
- Most of the major operators around the world have double digit percentage contribution to their overall ARPU from data services. Operators like KDDI, DoCoMo, 3 Italy, 3 UK, and O2 UK are topping 30%.
- Both India and China added a whopping 85 million new subscriptions (most of them prepaid). This week India edges past US to become the number 2 wireless market (by subscriptions) in the world. In last two years alone it added almost 150 million new subscriptions (in comparison China added 155 million and the US market added 44 million).
- Vodafone Italy reported the highest increase in data ARPU from 4Q06 with 76% growth. Other notable percentage increases in ARPU were from Rogers, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile Austria. The biggest drop in percentage terms were registered by the Indian operators with average data ARPU dropping to $0.70.
- In terms of absolute dollar amount, 3 UK leads the pack with $29 data ARPU (qualifying limit: 4 million subs). By comparison, the rest of the top 4 operators are below $22. In fact, 3 UK reported the highest ARPU recorded for the year at approximately $94 (in Q2). Other operators who reported overall ARPU above $60 were KDDI, NTT DoCoMo, Rogers, and 3 Sweden.
- The biggest jump in data revenues was experienced by Verizon Wireless with over 68% increase from 2006 followed by AT&T with 63% jump and O2 UK making 49% gain.
- In 2007, SMSs vice like grip on data revenues continued to loosen a bit with many carriers seeing an increase in non-SMS data revenues. On an average, Japan and Korea have over 70-75% of their revenue coming from non-SMS data applications, US around 50-60%, and Western Europe around 20-40%.
- The top 10 operators increased their revenue by 32% during 2007 (from 2006) to reach almost $62 billion in data service revenues, thus accounting for almost half of the global data service revenues though they account for only 27% of the global subscription base.
- NTT DoCoMos position at the top of the wireless data world has been challenged recently by several carriers esp. by its archrival KDDI. Their data coordinates stand at ($21.5, 35%) and ($21, 34%) respectively (please see PowerPoint for reference). Since the takeover from Vodafone, Softbank has been making significant strides in the market by taking the highest share of the net-adds in last 9 months.
- The biggest percentage contribution by data ARPU has been consistently registered (since mid 2002) by two Philippines carriers Smart Communications and Globe Telecom with almost 55% (or $4) contribution coming from data services.
- Even though China reported approximately $12.5B in data revenues for 2007 and the percentage contribution is over 23%, data ARPU is around $2.3. For India data ARPU dropped below $1 for all major carriers.
- China Mobile with 369M (as of Dec 07, the numbers increased to 384M by Feb 08) remains the #1 carrier in terms of total number of subscribers followed by Vodafone at 252M and China Unicom with 160M subscriptions. Telefonica, Amrica Mvil, SingTel, Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile), and Orange (France Telecom) are the next five largest telecom groups in the world. In terms of individual carriers in a given country, AT&T and Verizon Wireless occupy the #3 and #4 spot respectively ahead of NTT DoCoMo, which is at #5. The two Chinese carriers round up the top two positions and are likely to stay perched at their lookout vistas for many years to come. China Mobile also surpassed Vodafone in market cap which stands at $288B (vs. $164B for Vodafone). Telecom groups in mature markets are under enormous pressure to either come up with a global expansion strategy or accelerate their existing plans. Carriers in Japan and Korea are the most under duress.
- As far as 3G is concerned, GSA reported 293 WCDMA commercial launches worldwide with over 270M 3G users (66% of them are WCDMA users vs. EV-DO). Both Japan and Korea continue to expand their 3G base with both reporting over 75-80% penetration. 3G has picked-up steam in both western Europe and North America per our forecast in the 2005 cover story article 3G: Hitting the Mass Market published in the Wireless World Magazine. Western Europe and US are approximately at 25% 3G penetration (Italy being the exception reaching 40%).
- China and India represent the biggest opportunities for Infrastructure providers. China has postponed its 3G decision for the umpteenth time and has been having technical and political problems to get something in place before the 2008 Olympics. India is going through its 3G spectrum policy but unlike China is likely to resolve the issues in short order. Some of the biggest infrastructure contracts will come from these two countries that are looking to expand coverage into rural areas. In India, regulators are considering inviting bids for the 3G spectrum from foreign entities as well.
- Carriers with nationwide 3G networks and good distribution of handsets are seeing uptick in data ARPU. The Japanese and Korean carriers along with operator 3, Verizon, Sprint Nextel are all seeing benefits of rolling out their 3G service. Deployment of 3.5G technologies such as HSDPA and EV-DO Rev A (and B) are also gaining momentum. Networks are getting deployed and market is being seeded with some of the early handsets. In terms of 4G, there is a strong momentum behind LTE, UMB in its current incarnation is practically dead, and proponents of WiMAX are pushing the technology as a 4G candidate, though it is starting to lose its time advantage.
- In terms of applications, messaging accounts for lion-share of data revenues. However, other services such as Mobile Music, Mobile TV and video streaming, Voice navigation, PNDs, Mobile Games, IMS, LBS, Mobile advertising, and others have captured industrys imagination. Though not much talked about, enterprise applications are also being adopted widely esp. in North America as more workers become mobile and corporations seek efficiencies in their operations and supply-chain.
- 2007 also saw the demise of some high-profile MVNOs like AmpD. Helio continues to struggle while the newer ones like Sonopia and Blyk are testing the treacherous waters with different business models. Asian market is also opening up for MVNOs.
- Nokia eclipsed 100M/quarter unit sale three times in 2007. It sold over 437M handsets in 2007, more than the next three handset manufacturers combined. Nokias global market share stood at 40.2%.
- While the talk of Open Access and Open Platform consumed much of North America, it barely registered a decibel elsewhere. Several significant events including 700 MHz Auction, Android, and Verizons Open Network initiative elevated the consternation in the ecosystem.
- Several operators reported Mobile Advertising as their key strategic focus for the coming quarters, esp. China Mobile and Vodafone. Sensing the opportunity to seek new sources of revenue stream, Nokia launched its ad service as well. 2007 saw tremendous M&A activity in both the online and mobile advertising space. In a matter of weeks, several billion dollar transactions took place highlighting the intensity in preparing for the next battleground. The estimated market for mobile advertising in 2007 was approximately $2.3B with messaging, search, and browsing accounting for over 84% of the revenues.
Your feedback is always welcome.
Chetan Sharma
Disclosure: Some of the companies mentioned in this note are our clients.
Mobile Advertising Events March 14, 2008
Posted by chetan in : Mergers and Acquisitions, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Search, Speaking Engagements, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so farIt will be a very busy next few weeks
March
Next week on 19th, we are at Stanford University being hosted by Mobile Momentum to do a book event. Details here. RSVP at stanfordevent at chetansharma dot com. Bring your friends and colleagues.
The book discussion will be followed by a panel discussion with some of the smartest brains in the business - Ujjal Kohli, CEO, Rhythm New Media, Brian Cowley, CEO, AdInfuse, and Tony Nethercutt, VP, Admob.
AdInfuse, Admob, and Rhythm New Media are also the generous sponsors of the event. So, many thanks again.
The next day (20th), I fly back to Seattle to moderate a panel on Mobile Advertising being organized by TiE. Event and Registration details here. Panelists are Jeff Giard, Director, Alltel, Brian Lent, CEO, Medio Systems, Scott Silk, CEO, ActionEngine, and Jason Guenther, Director, Disney.
The following week on the 27th, I will be moderating a panel being organized by Washington Technology Industry Association. The topic is Mobile Mania - Show me the Money. Event and Registration details here. Speakers are Jai Jaisimha, VP, AOL, Brendan Benzing, VP, Motricity, F. Joseph Verschueren, CEO, Formotus, and Ian McKerlich, Director, T-Mobile USA.
April
Then, I head off to CTIA in Vegas.
In late April (24th), I will be giving a talk in Sacramento - Mobile Advertising - The $20B Opportunity?. The event is being organized by TechCoire - Sacramento region’s only business-technology education and networking organization. More info on them here. Thanks Gopan for the invite.
I got to know two wonderful people at Stanford University last year - Prof. Tom Kosnik and his student Mohit Gundecha. It was in context of the event that Mobile Momentum organized on the Indian Wireless Market. I serve on the advisory board. In fact, Mohit is single-handedly organizing our Stanford event next week.
Prof. Tom Kosnik has invited me to give a class to his students on Mobile Advertising which is great honor. His course - Global Entrepreneurial Marketing is a very popular course at Stanford and always gets full very quickly.
May
After a brief break, we head down to San Diego on 20th for another book event being organized by CommNexus - a very active High Tech and Communications Industry association.
The same week, I will be at FiRe (Future in Review) conference being organized by SNS and Mark Anderson and will be moderating a brilliant panel on Mobile Advertising. Event and Registration details here.
US Wireless Market Update - 4Q07 and 2007 March 10, 2008
Posted by chetan in : 3G, AORTA, BRIC, Carriers, Devices, European Wireless Market, India, Indian Wireless Market, Intellectual Property, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, M&A, MVNO, Mergers and Acquisitions, Microsoft Mobile, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Gaming, Mobile Search, Mobile TV, Mobile Usability, Smart Phones, Strategy, US Wireless Market, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 4 commentsUS Wireless Market Update - 4Q07 and 2007
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.
- The US Wireless data service revenues grew 7.8% Q/Q to $6.9B in Q407. For the year 2007, the US wireless data service revenues grew to $24.5B, up 55% from 2006.
- Overall ARPU declined by $0.81and reversed the trend of overall ARPU uptick of the last two quarters. Average voice ARPU declined by almost $1.50 while average data ARPU inched up by $0.68 or 7%.
- Sprint lead in data ARPU with $11.50 (or 19.83% of the revenues) closely followed by Verizon at $11.06. Verizon was ahead in terms of data as % ARPU with 21.3% of its ARPU coming from data services. AT&T with $10 (or 19.89%) and T-Mobile with $8.2 (or 16%) rounded up the top 4.
- The strongest growth in 2007 came from Verizon and AT&T, with both of them tied at 64% YOY jump in data revenues. However, Verizon was ahead in dollar terms at $7.4B, accounting for almost 31% of the US industry data services revenue for the year. The top two were followed by T-Mobile at 56% and Sprint with 31% increase YOY.
- The average industry % contribution of data to service revenues jumped to 19.34%.
- In terms of net-adds, thanks to the Dobson acquisition and the iPhone sales, AT&T added 2.7M new subscribers followed by Verizon at 2M. The overall net-adds improved by 6.2M subs taking the total for the year to 20.8M, down slightly from 2006. Despite the 7% slowdown, there is plenty of growth left in the US wireless market.
- In spite of AT&Ts prolific quarter, Verizon ended up with the highest net-adds for the year at 7.7M subs vs. AT&Ts 6.9M.
- The top three US carriers again maintained their respective rankings amongst the top 10 global carriers in terms of data revenues. For the year, Verizon with $7.4B, AT&T with $6.9B, and Sprint with $5.2B in data services revenues stood at #4, 5, and 6 respectively with Verizon closing in on KDDI for the number 3 spot. AT&T became the second US operator after Verizon to be in the select group of five global operators who are now generating $2B or more in data revenues/quarter (the other three are NTT DoCoMo, China Mobile, and KDDI).
- Non-messaging data revenues continue to be in the 50-60% (of the data revenues) range for the US carriers.
- There was tremendous activity in the area of Mobile Advertising. Google is also laying out its tactical and strategic roadmap in hopes to dominate the space and while it succeeded in pushing FCC to change the 700 MHz auction rules, the future of Android alliance remains uncertain. It did however; help open the open debate in the industry. Meanwhile, Yahoo is busy creating some compelling applications and is stitching together carrier deals around the world.
- Venture money continued to flow into the mobile sector with over $4.9B investment in 2007 (Source: Rutberg). Location Services, Mobile Personalization, Mobile Video, Mobile Search and Advertising, Semiconductor, Carrier infrastructure, Device design and development are hot areas.
- iPhone helped AT&T find its voice. Since the introduction of iPhone in June 07, AT&T has reversed the multi-quarter trend of narrowing total subscriber difference with Verizon. Aided by the Dobson acquisition, the difference between the two companies stood at 4.4M subscribers in favor of AT&T (vs. 1.5M in Q107). iPhone also accounted for (higher) disproportionate mobile web usage exciting the ecosystem and media alike.
- Nokia eclipsed 100M unit sale in Q407 for the third straight quarter. It sold over 437M handsets in 2007, more than the next three handset manufacturers combined. Nokias global market share stood at 40.2%. Quite impressive.
- 3G penetration in the US touched 25% in 2007, with Verizon leading the pack with over 53% 3G subscriber penetration. AT&T reported that 3G subs have over $20 in data ARPU accounting for 30% contribution to the overall ARPU from such subs. These trends are expected and the diffusion of mobile broadband will continue to create new opportunities and revenues for the ecosystem.
- There was tremendous discussion around openness. Bowing to the industry pressure, FCCs 700 MHz spectrum auction included clauses for opening up the network by the winner. Sprint made progress with its upcoming launch of XOHM. Verizon launched its Open initiative. Googles Android was announced in Q407. Though devices are slated to hit the market in 08, its overall impact remains uncertain.
Global update
- China and India added approximately 86M subscribers in 2007 dwarfing growth in other regions by a distance (China marginally edged out India to retain the top honors). Similar growth trends will continue into 2008. In fact, India will overtake US as the number two wireless market in the world (by total subscriptions) during the week of March 24th 2008.
- NTT DoCoMo continues to dominate the wireless data revenues rankings with over $12B in data services revenue in 2007. 35% of its revenue now comes from data services. DoCoMo will also cross 80% in 3G penetration this month. China Unicom edged past SK Telecom to occupy the number 9 spot.
- Most of the major carriers around the world have double digit percentage contribution to their overall ARPU from data services. Operators like KDDI, DoCoMo, and O2 UK are consistently topping 30%.
More details in our worldwide wireless data market update coming out later this month.
Your feedback is always welcome.
Chetan Sharma
Busy News day February 11, 2008
Posted by chetan in : AORTA, European Wireless Market, International Trade, Japan Wireless Market, Mergers and Acquisitions, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Ecosystem, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a commentOf course, MWC is underway but even otherwise, there are plenty of news items trickling in
- Microsoft is in the mood to buy, while Yahoo! takeover is pending, Microsoft acquired Danger of Sidekick fame for an undisclosed amount
- Starbucks divorces T-Mobile, marries AT&T, does iPhone have anything to do with it?
- Cellfire - mobile coupon company raises $12M
- As expected, Google’s Android demos make special appearance in Barcelona
- Plenty of Mobile Advertising News as well
- Nokia launches global mobile ad network
- O2 started its mobile advertising service
- GSMA and Operators are working on standards for measuring mobile ads
Mobile Industry Predictions - 2008 January 1, 2008
Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, Carriers, European Wireless Market, Indian Wireless Market, Intellectual Property, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, M&A, MVNO, Mergers and Acquisitions, Messaging, Microsoft Mobile, Middleware, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Gaming, Mobile Search, Mobile TV, Mobile Usability, Privacy, Smart Phones, Speech Recognition, US Wireless Market, Unified Messaging, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 9 commentsI never think of future, it comes soon enough Albert Einstein
First things first. Wish you a very happy and successful 2008.
Before we look at whats to come, lets do a quick wrap-up of the year that was.
2007 will clearly be remembered as the year of iPhone. While there were several other events/trends of interest through-out the year, nothing captured the imagination of the world like the iPhone. It was significant for another big reason it had a profound impact on the business model and ecosystem dynamics. Q4 2007 was also significant for the deafening roar that resonated around Openness.
Steve Ballmer exclaimed mobile to be the next battleground while Eric Schmidt pondered why mobile phones are not free (subsidized by Google ads of course).
Google played its chess game effectively and though it is unlikely to play to win the 700 MHz auction or even if they do win would be able to do anything substantive in the short-term, they did, however, with Android and spectrum gambit, force some of the regulation-wary operators to take a stance on openness. Nokia is putting together a brilliant services strategy that looks to connect directly to the consumer. Competition and coopitition will have a different meaning going forward.
Things were looking positive for WiMAX until the end of the year when Clearwire was left standing on its own. It will look towards Google, Sprint, Motorola, and others to rescue its fate.
Mobile Advertising was hailed as a great savior of mobile content and mobile revenues in general. Blyk even launched an advertising-based MVNO. We made significant headway in energizing the sub segment but the tough problems of privacy, education, control, fragmentation, and user experience remain. LBS picked up steam and mobility started to get into the alternate consumer device universe.
In terms of actual dollars, mobile data market continued its steady growth with substantial shifts in revenue towards non-SMS data applications and services. Several operators are doing $2B/quarter+ in data revenues. Several subscription milestones throughout the year: 3B worldwide, 500M China, 250M US, 225M India. 3G continued to inch towards mass-market in western markets (20-25% penetration) while in Korea and Japan, it was getting hard to find people without 3G (70%+ penetration).
Among other events of significance: Cincinnati Bell and T-Mobile launched UMA devices, Motorola lost its Mojo, AmpD and Disney Mobile shut down, MediaFLO launched, mCommerce initiatives took hold, China continued to delay 3G, WM got updated, Yahoo cemented some impressive operator deals as GYM got more active in mobile, UMPC fizzled, Mobile Web 2.0 got into the industry physce, LTE got embraced worldwide, M&A galored, IP scuffles continued, Muni projects went into coma, and DRM-adorned content became a thing of the past.
2008 will be a pretty eventful year from several perspectives: business models, user experience and expectations, ecosystem posturing, disruption, and friction. How are things going to shape up? What will be hot and what will fade into oblivion? How will competition shape up the new sub-segments? We put some of the questions to our colleagues in the industry. This survey was a bit different in the sense that the movers and shakers (and folks from the companies discussed here) and industry insiders participated. We were able to glean some valuable insights from their choices and comments. Participants (n=196) were folks from across the mobile value chain and from around the world.
Many thanks to everyone who participated.
Three names were drawn for a copy of our upcoming book Mobile Advertising (co-authored with Joe Herzog and Victor Melfi, John Wiley & Sons, 432 pages, Feb 2008).
The winners are:
-
David Cushman, Director, Emap
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Larry Shapiro, VP, Disney, and
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Keith Kostuch, SVP, Alltel
Congrats and Thank you.
Now onto the survey analysis.
Figures above and below summarize the responses. We requested respondents to rate the probability of an event happening in 2008 on a scale 1 to 5. 1 being Not a chance to 5 being 100% probability The figure above summarizes the overall probability of the event happening. The figure below provides the breakdown of responses.
1. Will Google introduce a Google Branded Phone in 2008?
Will it? Wont it? 44.5% gave it a 75% or higher chance of happening while 40% thought it aint happening. GPhone is a temptation Google will find hard to resist though a lot will depend on how various initiatives and partnerships shape-up on the ground. In any case, expect another major announcement in the next 2-3 months.
2. Will Google play to win in the 700MHz Spectrum Auction?
Google has played the spectrum chess game effectively. Almost 50% respondents gave it a 75% or higher chance of Google winning the bid. Though expectations are high, Google is unlikely to play to win. Services business is not their cup of tea, they could still fund the Clearwire-Sprint deal but that investment can be spent differently to get better end-results, i.e. mobile ad revenue.
3. Will Microsoft launch its own mobile phone?
Unless Google comes out with GPhone, Microsoft will stay content with its operator distribution strategy. 63% of respondents gave it less than a 25% chance of Microsoft releasing their own phone. If GPhone comes out and gets some traction, expect Microsoft to get its fast follower strategy into high gear.
4. Will Mobile Payments get traction in North America and Western Europe?
Only 9% thought it is a sure bet for 2008. True mobile commerce hasnt really started in the western world. While there are significant movements, 2008 will just be a lay the groundwork year for mobile payments.
5. Will WiMAX regroup from its setbacks?
Only 35% gave it a 75% or higher chance (of WiMAX resurrecting itself esp. in the US in 2008). A lot depends on how Mr. Hesse deals with Sprints WiMAX business. Indications are there will be a deal with Clearwire to off-load the risks via some external investment (Google?).
6. Will Helio survive 2008?
Almost 70% respondents thought Helio wont make it. Given the flameout of some of the prominent new-generation MVNOs, it is hard to see how Helio will see 2009. It will all come down to how persistent is SK Telecom. Earthlink doesnt have the bank balance to keep funding this initiative.
7. Will Verizon truly open-up its garden for third-party visitations?
Only 5% thought it is a sure bet for 2008. Verizons open posturing was more to ward off any regulators and to improve its image. There is unlikely to be any meaningful progress on this front this year.
8. Will 2008 be the inflection year for Mobile Advertising?
42% gave Mobile Advertising a 75% or higher chance for rapid growth. Market will mature, more consolidation, some privacy gaffes but overall things are looking up for mobile advertising.
9. Will Femto-Cells gain any significant momentum in 2008?
It will be an introduction and experimentation year, so no significant traction is expected. Over 52% thought Femto-Cells will be just a buzz word in 2008.
10. Will Nokia be able to extract iPhone-style rev-share from carriers in 2008?
Less than 20% thought Nokia will be able to do an Apple when it comes to rev-share arrangements. For OEMs, going direct to the consumers was considered treachery to the sacrosanct relationship with the operators. Until Apple showed up with iPhone. Now, Nokia is putting its services strategy in motion and is building a direct relationship with the consumers worldwide and it has a good shot at pulling it off though it will be a long haul.
11. Will Palm survive 2008?
Only 8% gave it a 100% chance of surviving 08 as an independent entity. It will be difficult for Palm to stay in a status-quo mode. They desperately need a hit device that can give them some breathing room. Given all the operational and strategic problems the company is having, a sale is likely.
12. Will iPhone truly open up?
Over 45% thought iPhone wont open-up in any meaningful way. Apple has built-up one of the most profitable closed empires in the digital world. Are they about open things up? While the iPhone SDK is scheduled for early 08, dont hold your breath on accessing the critical native APIs.
13. Will there be more unsubsidized devices introduced in the US market in 2008?
Almost 49% thought we are likely to see another unsubsidized device in the US market this year. Nokia is looking to go direct and some GSM handset manufacturers are likely to entertain the idea of testing the market with unsubsidized devices.
14. Will Mobile TV move the needle in 2008?
Almost 70% thought mobile TV wont make much of a difference in 08.Though AT&T is slated to introduce MediaFLO to join Verizon in the Mobile TV services market, lack of devices and better pricing models will hinder wide adoption in 2008. However, downloadable video and VOD content will experience significant growth.
15. Will Android make a dent in handset shipments in 2008?
Only 15% gave it a more than 75% chance this year. It is going to take some time for Android plans to mature and materialize. Dont see any material impact in 08.
Of course, 15 questions cant cover the whole industry. As pointed out our respondents, there are a number of other issues and opportunities that will shape the ecosystem - Rise of Facebook as social networking OS for mobile (social networking as a whole starts to go mobile), LBS beyond navigation, Rev-share shuffles, Chinese OEM start to become prominent in the western world, China and India continue to dominate in net-adds, Mobile device security becomes a nightmare for corporate IT, Consumers wake up to mobile privacy snafus and risks, Will Android spread its tentacles beyond nicheosphere, 3G iPhone, Does China Olympics hold any surprises for the mobile industry? Launch of projection handsets, NFC handsets, IMS .. and much much more ..
All in all, consternation and debate will continue into 2008. We will analyze, dissect, and report as events unfold in the new year.
Look forward to the continuing dialogue and meeting with you in person.
Your feedback is always welcome.
Chetan Sharma
Request for Participation: 2008 Mobile Industry Predictions December 18, 2007
Posted by chetan in : 3G, Carriers, Indian Wireless Market, Japan Wireless Market, Mergers and Acquisitions, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Ecosystem, US Wireless Market, Worldwide Wireless Market , 2 comments2008 is upon us. We are doing a short survey (15 questions, Multiple Choice, One Answer) to gather insights from the collective brain trust - our readers, friends and colleagues. If you could please take this short survey and let us know what you think. You can answer any or all questions. If you leave your email address, we will enter you in the drawing for winning a signed copy of our upcoming book “Mobile Advertising” (John Wiley & Sons, Feb 2008).
We will share the summary of the results during the first week of 2008.
Please click here to start responding. If the link doesn’t work for you, please cut-n-paste this URL -
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=vGkMMvzoWGvFvfCC5TNDUg_3d_3d
Survey ends Dec 28th.
The questions are:
1. Will there be a Google Phone in 2008?
2. Will Google play to win in the 700MHz Spectrum Auction?
3. Will Microsoft launch its own mobile phone?
4. Will Mobile Payments get traction in North America and Western Europe?
5. Will WiMAX regroup from its setbacks?
6. Will Verizon truly open-up its garden for third-party visitations?
7. Will 2008 be the inflection year for Mobile Advertising?
8. Will Android make a dent in handset shipments in 2008?
9. Will Femto-Cells gain any significant momentum in 2008?
10. Will Nokia be able to extract iPhone-style rev-share from carriers in 2008?
11. Will Helio survive 2008?
12. Will Palm survive 2008?
13. Will iPhone truly open up?
14. Will there be more unsubsidized devices introduced in the US market in 2008?
15. Will Mobile TV move the needle in 2008?
Please feel free to pass this on to anyone who might be interested or have something to say.
Thanks and Have a safe and wonderful holiday.
Stanford University Program - Future of Indian Mobile Value Added Services (MVAS) Market December 8, 2007
Posted by chetan in : 3G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, Carriers, India, Indian Wireless Market, Intellectual Property, Japan Wireless Market, Mergers and Acquisitions, Messaging, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Gaming, Mobile Search, Mobile TV, Mobile Usability, Smart Phones, Speaking Engagements, Speech Recognition, US Wireless Market, Unified Messaging, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 18 commentsStanford 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, lets do the numbers. As we have reported in our previous research notes, Indias 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 havent 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 - Q3 2007 November 18, 2007
Posted by chetan in : 3G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, Carriers, Enterprise Mobility, Indian Wireless Market, Intellectual Property, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, MVNO, Mergers and Acquisitions, Microsoft Mobile, Middleware, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Search, Smart Phones, Strategy, US Wireless Market, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 2 commentsUS Wireless Data Market Update - Q3 2007
http://www.chetansharma.com/usmarketupdateq307.htm
US wireless data market continued its growth reaching $6.4B in service revenues for the third quarter. With the holiday quarter to go, the aggregate data revenues for the year are already past the 2006 data revenue mark. Whether it was the first full quarter of iPhone sales, or the debate on the upcoming 700MHz spectrum auction, or the rumors swirling around the gPhone, or the continued M&A activity - the US wireless data market remained vibrant in Q3. Given that majority of the data revenues now comes from non-messaging applications and services and the subscriber penetration for such services is just getting into the inflection zone, US remains one of the most attractive wireless data markets.
- US Wireless data service revenues grew 9.4% Q/Q to $6.4B in Q307. For the first nine months of 2007, the US wireless data service revenues stood at $17.7B jumping 59% from the same time period in 2006.
- Overall ARPU decreased slightly by $0.12 Q/Q to $53.50. The overall voice ARPU declined by $0.35 to $43.93 while data ARPU continued its steady incline, increasing by $0.53 to $9.57.
- Verizon continues to lead in both data ARPU as well as Data as a % of ARPU with $10.6 and 20.30% numbers respectively, in the process becoming the first US carrier to get past the $10 in data ARPU and 20% in data contribution. Sprint also touched $10 in data ARPU but is now last amongst the top four carriers in data % which stood at 16.95%. AT&Ts numbers were $9.35 and 18.4% respectively while T-Mobiles performance also improved with $8.32 in data ARPU contributing 17.88%
- The strongest growth continues to come from Verizon, accounting for almost 31% of industrys data revenue in Q307. Its data service revenues jumped by 11% Q/Q to $2B (again becoming the first US carrier to get past the $2B milestone). Verizon was followed by AT&T at $1.8B, Sprint at $1.2B, and T-Mobile at $676M.
- The % contribution of data to service revenues jumped to almost 18% in Q307 and is likely to touch 20% next quarter.
- Last week, US crossed the 250 Million subscription mark. The net-adds stabilized for the quarter even though Sprint lost 337K net subs. While AT&T is the only carrier to cross the 2M mark for net-adds/quarter this year, Verizon is ahead of AT&T in overall net-adds for the year by approximately 820K subs. iPhone couldnt have come at a better time for AT&T which helped in stemming the tide of losing the market share to Verizon.
- The current net-adds rate for the year is 1.65M subs/month down from 1.92M subs/month in 2006 and 2M subs/month in 2005. Though the growth rate has expectedly slowed down, there is still plenty of room for growth over the next five years.
- The top three US carriers again maintained their respective rankings amongst the top 10 global carriers in terms of data revenues. For the year, Verizon with $5.4B, AT&T with $4.95B, and Sprint with $3.7B in service data revenues stood at #4, 5, and 6 respectively with Verizon closing in on KDDI for the number 3 spot. Verizon became one of only four operators in the world who are now generating $2B or more in data revenues/quarter (the other three are NTT DoCoMo, China Mobile, and KDDI). The carrier indicated that enterprise services such as data card and mobile email are generating in excess of $500M/quarter now.
- Non-messaging data revenues continue to be in the 50-60% (of the data revenues) range for the US carriers.
- There was tremendous activity in the area of Mobile Advertising. Google is also laying out its tactical roadmap in hopes to dominate the space and its every move in the mobile space makes its fellow brethren in Redmond scratch their heads. Meanwhile, Yahoo is busy stitching together carrier deals around the world. We just finished a comprehensive book on the subject. More details coming soon.
- Venture money continued to flow into the mobile sector taking the YTD investments to over $4B. Source: Rutberg. Mobile TV/Video, Mobile Personalization, Mobile Search and Advertising, Semiconductor, Carrier infrastructure, Device design and development are hot areas.
- iPhone became the quickest smartphone to eclipse the 1M mark in a quarter (by doing it in its first full quarter). By contrast, RIM took 22 quarters or 5.5 years to crack the 1M/quarter sale mark. Palm is still searching for the elusive milestone and might not find it in this lifetime. iPhone also made its entry into Europe and remains in intense negotiations with operators worldwide.
- Nokia eclipsed 100M unit sale in Q307 for the second straight quarter. Its 9 month tally stood at 303.6M followed by Motorola at 117.8M and Samsung at 114.8M. Nokias share of the market went up to 39.1% followed by Samsung at 14.6%, Motorola at 12.8% Sony Ericsson at 8.9% and LG at 7.5%. Apple shipped 1.12M iPhones during the quarter generating the revenue of $118M.
- Despite the sale of over 239M handsets by the top 5 manufacturers during Q307, the industry remained mesmerized by the advent of iPhone. Uncharacteristically, Apple lowered the price of the phone ahead of the holiday season.
- After the launch of iPhone, the talk of gPhone filled the rumoid. While the possibility of a gPhone launch remains open for 1H08, Google launched Android to keep things interesting in the industry.
- T-Mobile USA launched the first device with HotSpot @Home service in Q3.
- There was a renewed interest in LBS and it generated some huge M&A transactions in the sub-sector led by Nokias acquisition of Navteq.
- In terms of messaging, T-Mobile keeps their users more engaged than other carriers. Each T-Mobile subs exchanged on an average 758 messages last quarter compared to 584 messages by a Verizon sub and followed by 370 messages by an AT&T subscriber. By comparison, subscribers in Philippines engage in almost 2000 messages every quarter or pretty much a message every hour.
- In our 2005 paper on 3G diffusion, we estimated that 2007 will be the inflection year for 3G in the US market. In Q307, the 3G penetration was just shy of 20% with Verizon leading the pack with 50% 3G subscriber penetration. AT&T reported that 3G subs have over $20 in data ARPU accounting for 30% contribution to the overall ARPU from such subs. These trends are expected and the diffusion of mobile broadband will continue to create new opportunities and revenues for the ecosystem.
- Being Open is the new Black. Apple announced SDK for iPhone, Sprint touted XOHM, 700 MHz spectrum auction became a subject of great debate and posturing, and Google launched Android (in nov). The convergence of mediums is creating friction, introspection, fear, and opportunities (FIFO). We clearly live in interesting times.
Global update (more details in our worldwide wireless data market update coming out in Q108)
- The RIC in BRIC: We had a chance to visit and spend some time in Russia, India, and China during the past few months. These markets remain vibrant especially China and India adding an aggregate of 15.3M subs a month last quarter. India outpaced China with 24.2M net-adds vs. 21.68M in Q307. Mobile coverage in China is ridiculously good. We found strong RSSI in deep gorges on Yangtze as well as high up on the mountains. Regulators in both countries also gave some indications of granting spectrum for 3G.
- NTT DoCoMo continues to dominate the wireless data revenues rankings crossing the $3B/quarter mark and taking its tally for the year to over $8.6B. They also crossed the 75% mark for 3G penetration. China Unicom edged past SK Telecom to occupy the number 9 spot. Rest of the rankings remained the same.
- Most of the major carriers around the world have double digit percentage contribution to their overall ARPU from data services. Operators like KDDI, DoCoMo, and O2 UK are topping 30%.
Your feedback is always welcome.
Chetan Sharma
CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment 2007 Roundup October 28, 2007
Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, CTIA, Carriers, Devices, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Infrastructure, Intellectual Property, MVNO, Mergers and Acquisitions, Messaging, Microsoft Mobile, Middleware, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Gaming, Mobile Search, Mobile TV, Mobile Usability, Partnership, Privacy, Smart Phones, Strategy, US Wireless Market, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 4 comments
http://www.chetansharma.com/ctiaoct07.htm
The early morning full moon over the San Francisco bay was much more inspiring than any gizmos or gimmicks at the annual CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment show. Maybe it is the conference fatigue setting in but the scaled back event failed to gather steam and one had to rely on alternate sources to get a sense of where things are headed in the next 6-12 months. This note summarizes the observations and commentary from the show.
First lets do the numbers. CTIA released its mid-year data survey for the year. In summary, as of June 2007 - 243M subs, $67.9B in revenues (first 6 months), $10.5B in data revenues for the year accounting for 15.5% of the total service revenue, MOU exceeded 1 Trillion minutes, 1B TXT messages daily. These numbers were in line with the numbers we reported back in Aug.
Keynotes - The central theme that tied the three keynotes was Be Open, Do Good Work, and Rest will take care of itself. The keynotes from Steve Ballmer, Microsoft, Dustin Moskovitz, Facebook, and Atish Gude, Sprint Nextel emphasized the need to have an open platform for innovation, applications, and services. Havent we been down this lane before?
Steve started by taking a page out of our (upcoming) book, literally (page 243 to be exact) and describing a vision where mobile device becomes the remote control of your life for both workstyle and lifestyle. Too often we focus on separating out personal vs. professional but our lives are so intertwined that one minute you are setting up a doctors appointment and the next minute closing a sale. Companies that focus on managing the experience start to finish (waking to sleeping) independent of everything else will be the ones that dominate these turf wars. Microsofts big announcement was the release of device management server that includes mobile devices in addition to the desktop world (but it is limited to windows mobile devices only, Open?). Microsoft has been making impressive strides in occupying its place in the mobile ecosystem. Though windows mobile and battery life dont go together, the fact that they are deployed with 160 operators in 55 countries, shipping 20M devices/year places them at a significant advantage in the coming days.
Facebooks Moskovitz made the plea for openness of networks, devices, and applications to enable the social networking phenomenon on mobile. The fact that Microsoft and Facebook were doing the keynotes on the eve of strategic investment wasnt a coincidence. Dustin brought out the elderly statesman Mike Lazaridis to announce the facebook app for Blackberry smartphones. The interesting thing was how the app was introduced - Facebook chose RIM and RIM chose T-Mobile for this app. Device manufacturers are surely getting bolder. Facebook extended its platform to mobile. Getting social networking apps on mobile is a no-brainer. In fact, the coming enhancements with Presence, IMS, Broadband, Profiling, Location, can make mobile social network a society of its own.
I thought the most forceful case for openness was delivered by Atish Gude, SVP of the XOHM (WiMAX) initiative at Sprint Nextel. In fact, it was exactly along the lines of our recommendations for the operators in our book. Atish talked about openness across network, devices, content, and applications to deliver a great customer experience. Operators focus on delivering the intelligent network by focusing on QoS, Network elements like Presence and Location, Security, and Consistency of throughput and performance and leave the innovation in applications and services on the ecosystem who know how best to exploit the medium. His definition of device expanded beyond the mobile phone into consumer electronics and appliances which is a smart way of looking at things. However, vision is one thing and execution is another. Will Sprint be able to deliver on this vision in a timely fashion amidst quarterly Wall Street pressure is going to define the industry more than any of the hoopla of 700MHz.
Enterprise MIA - One of the personalities was clearly missing from the show. Yes, there was an enterprise pavilion but nothing new and different surfaced. Microsofts late foray into the device management space was the only worthwhile news that emerged.
LBS - The LBS industry proudly presented its posterchilds TeleAtlas, Navteq, TeleNav, and others. Their imposing presence on the show floor and in some of the sessions was palpable. I have been working in or following this space since 1995 and it finally feels that there is going to be some activity in this space after years of posturing, delays, and hype. However, the true value of location cant be unlocked unless it truly becomes open for the application and service developers. The delivery of coordinates for every request is not cheap so some form of business model or technical break through is needed to make the use pervasive. Some of the newer players displaying their wares were Telmap, locr, and earthcomber.
Mobile Advertising - It is great to see the progress over the last 12 months. The distribution, inventory, and ad networks are all improving and size of the campaigns are starting to reach six figures on average. Some of the working demos I saw were really compelling and some unique solutions are going to be introduced in the market in the next six months. Though the space is still nascent, some trends have started to emerge - companies who are focused on solving the problem end-to-end from strategy to execution to understanding the results are separating themselves from the plethora of technology providers in the space. There is tremendous amount of work that needs to be done in the metrics and auditing space in addition to the integration of silos.
WiMAX picks up steam On the heels of WiMAX being declared as part of the IMT-2000 family, WiMAX is slated to gather momentum though a lot still depends on carriers like Sprint to deploy nationwide networks and device manufacturers like Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung to bring cheap devices to the market. Nevertheless, Ciscos acquisition of Navini, Beceems deal with NEC and others are signs of positive movement in this sector.
Mobile Video a dying market? Already? Only a couple of CTIAs ago, Mobile video took the event by storm only to find defending itself as a viable business in a short span of time. The video quality has improved significantly but the business models have not.
Entering the US market - US remains one of the most attractive market for mobile data but very few overseas firm succeed. One of the big European brands Zed is making an aggressive and impressive push into the US market and is expecting up to 30% (or $150M) of its revenues coming from the US market in the next 12 months. They have developed a good platform for interactive games that tie the experience across mobile and online really well. EA and the likes should take notice.
Open - not in my backyard The keynotes were in sharp contrast with some of the carrier panels. One of them seemed to be the replay of a session I attended in 2001 or was it 1997. Eerie.
Presence, IMS - The discussion around presence and IMS is intensifying. Demos are getting better and the coordination between carriers to standardize and interoperate is improving but we still have a long way to go.
Coolest gadget - NeuroSky filled the void of a gadget less show by showcasing its mind-over-matter technology. Using brainwaves which are detected by a sensor attached to your head, it allows the user to move, push, and float objects by just concentrating on them. Remember The Matrix. Now, if you throw in Philips amBX and Microvisions PicoP, your cell phone becomes this gaming platform that takes the die-hards to the transcendental state of nirvana.
iPhone continues to dominate the talk - iPhone continues to set the tone of discussion in the industry. Since July, there has hardly been a mobile conference worth its salt that hasnt had a session on impact of iPhone. There hasnt been a mobile device like this one and it shows. Attendees proudly fiddled with their iPhones in public and were eager to discuss their experience and forecasts.
US vs. Europe - There was quite a bit of us vs. them discussion. CTIAs Wireless Wave magazine started the discussion by its cover story article The Continental Divide (for which we were interviewed). It was soon covered by the likes of WSJ (Walt Mossberg - Free My Phone), GigaOM (How far behind is the US vs. Europe?), Steve Largent (Largent to Mossberg .. Wish you were here in San Francisco), and others. As I say in the article - the picture is more complicated .. and one needs to take a holistic view. This topic is crying for a detailed study.
MCommerce - Behind closed doors there is a lot of discussion on MCommerce and how to enable phone to become the wallet of choice (this will be music to the ears to my colleagues in Japan and Korea). Some new and interesting models are starting to appear. One is from Mobilians, a company that has had good success in South Korea and is now setting its sight on the US market. Their focus is to use the phone to enable payment of online and offline goods. In Korea, Mobilians is registering 7M transactions/ month and over $1B in goods sold/year with up to $250 items (which appear on the carrier bill). This is a totally untapped space for the carrier and is a threat to the credit card companies especially for the low cost items where the 2%+20-25c fee drives up the effective rate for the merchant. A tier-1 carrier is also looking to firm up its mCommerce strategy in the next few weeks. It should be noted that some of the smaller regional carriers who survive due to laser focus customer service are testing and rolling out innovative solutions ahead of their bigger peers. For e.g. CellularSouth launched picture application (with Ontela) and after their successful trials with NFC based payments is looking into launching WirelessWallet. Similarly, some others are in the process of getting some LBS, Mobile Search, and Mobile Advertising solutions in the next quarter or so.
Misc
AOL Mobile re-launched its mobile suite of products. It has a good suite of assets and the company is starting to integrate and enhance the user experience.
More M&A activities are expected in the mobile advertising space in the next 6-12 months as startups use every advantage to maximize the returns before the big boys catch-up.
There was hardly any mention of the gPhone or the zPhone.
Verizon and Sprint are boosting the holiday season lineups to counter the onslaught of iPhone with similar looking phones.
Becker - a 60 year old company which launched the first ever car radio showed off its Traffic Assist unit which had a good user interface and free real-time traffic info for life.
M2M players such as Telit and Numerex showed their solutions in the machine-to-machine communications space.
Talkster talked about its free global calls in exchange of listening to ads.
Your feedback is always welcome.
Chetan Sharma
Whitepaper: Unified Mobile Data Platform - An Analytics based approach June 11, 2007
Posted by chetan in : 3G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, Carriers, Devices, European Wireless Market, Indian Wireless Market, Intellectual Property, International Trade, Japan Wireless Market, MVNO, Mergers and Acquisitions, Messaging, Microsoft Mobile, Middleware, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Gaming, Mobile Search, Mobile TV, Mobile Usability, Strategy, US Wireless Market, Unified Messaging, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment
Whitepaper
Unified Mobile Data Platform An Analytics based approach
Sponsored by InfoSpace Mobile
Executive Summary
2006 was a banner year for mobile data. Revenues from mobile data increased for all major carriers across all major regions around the world with data contributing 10-30% to overall revenues. In Q1 2007, US carriers recorded over $5B in data revenues with mobile data contributing to over 16% of the more than $32B in carrier service revenues. In fact, the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) from data jumped 43% from last year. It has been a long journey though. Driven initially by SMS messaging, the market embraced ringtones, graphics, music, and gaming, each creating multi-billion dollar markets. As we look into the next five years, not only are new content applications such as broadcast video, idle screen, user-generated-content, community, and mobile search being introduced, but the functionality available with these applications, such as the sharing and tagging of data, is also increasing the demand on the mobile entertainment platform to be adaptive to the growing needs of the market. To stay competitive in this rapidly evolving and challenging market place, service providers must move from silod point solutions to integrated unified platforms to maximize their returns from the declining services and better prepare for the technical and business challenges in front of them. The vast potential of mobile data services in general and mobile search and advertising specifically cant be realized without a retooling of the fundamental approach to deploying services, engaging partners, and serving users with the best possible analytics-driven contextual user experience. This paper outlines the evolution of data services, discusses the need for unified mobile data services approach, and lays out the basics and the merits of a services-oriented analytics-driven framework.
Table of Contents
Executive Summary 2
Evolution of data services 3
Integrated solution offering 11
Mobile Search - providing impetus for integration 15
Rise of the brands - What’s your Audience Strategy? 17
Analytics driven unified framework 21
Mobile Advertising 26
Recommendations 29
Conclusions 30
Your comments are always welcome.
Chetan Sharma
CTIA Wireless 2007 Roundup April 2, 2007
Posted by chetan in : 3G, AORTA, ARPU, CTIA, Carriers, Devices, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Intellectual Property, International Trade, Japan Wireless Market, Mergers and Acquisitions, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Search, Mobile TV, Mobile Usability, Speech Recognition, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 5 comments
http://www.chetansharma.com/ctia0307roundup.htm
Orlando was the venue for CTIA Wireless 2007. Pre-show events include Mobile Entertainment Live (Billboard), day long seminars on Mobile Advertising and Emerging Technology. The main themes from the show were Mobile Advertising, NFC and Mobile Payments, Mobile TV, and WiMAX. This note summarizes the observations, interviews of executives, pre-show briefings, and commentary from the above shows.
First lets do the numbers Just before CTIA, M:Metrics released some numbers from their most recent survey. At the end of 2006, amongst the western nations, US had approximately 11% 3G penetration with Italy leading the way with 27%. Photo messaging is picking up reaching 15-30% penetration in most markets. CTIA also released their survey numbers. 233M subs, 76% penetration, and $8.7 billion for the latter six months of 2006, up 82% from $4.8 billion in the latter half of 2005. You probably already knew most of the above after reading our research note here. Instat reported that for the first time the handset replacement market was greater than the new purchase market. Replacement market is expected to take 80% share by 2011.
Keynotes Attendees come to keynotes to be inspired, to get a sense of the direction of our industry. Unfortunately, some use the opportunity as a sales platform and rehash of press releases. What a waste of time and the platform. What an insult to the audience. I thought the best keynote came from EMI CEO Eric Nicoli, who first eloquently laid out the potential of the industry and then brought us back to reality by outlining the hurdles that we need to overcome to realize the potential. At the most basic level, it is all about simplicity, valuable functionality, and the right pricing. However, the highlight of the show was being in the same room (along with a few hundred others) with two former heads of state Presidents Bush and Clinton.
Mobile Advertising As expected, the hottest theme out of this CTIA was Mobile Advertising. The pre-event seminar on the subject was packed with discussions and viewpoints from all parts of the value chain. The involvement of agencies was refreshing. They can help guide the industry by articulating the needs of the brands and agencies in an overall advertising framework, develop standards, and not develop point solutions that wont scale beyond MDF campaigns. But they are keenly aware of mobile and reported positive results from their tests for some big brands. David Rittenhouse from Ogilvy noted that Lenova experienced 188% lift (n=1495) in awareness from a mobile ad campaign. Third Screen reported up to 7.5% click rates on its network. Still missing were Internet players like Google and Yahoo. Vendor driven standardization processes are not very productive and take too long to become meaningful. Since, mobile advertising is the most buzzable topic in the industry right now; companies are adjusting their positioning to become mobile advertising players (akin to becoming Web 2.0 compliant). There was some debate whether off-deck impression is worth more than an on-deck impression. CPMs are a bit out of whack and will need to drop and stabilize. Premium CPMs range from $27-35 going as high as $60. User profile is of course the holy grail of mobile advertising. Visa demonstrated that mobile advertisements isnt really limited to messaging, keyword auction, and banner ads, but also includes promotions that drop in your applications based on your transaction history. Can carriers stop them from running this downloadable app on the device? They are running some trials to find that out. Code/Image-based advertising is also picking up Qcode, NFC, barcodes, pictures, etc as input to trigger content/ad delivery is making its way to the US.
Amongst the various enablers (that I was able to talk to and look at), The Hyperfactory has the most comprehensive view of the space and it shows in their campaigns. Not only cross carriers and cross handsets, but also cross modality and cross countries. Mobile Advertising needs to seamlessly fit in the overall digital strategy of a brand or else there will be too much friction. GSM association has taken some lead in helping define standards in this space. MMA is also updating its best practice guide though it needs to do more to expand its vision. Companies that made their presence felt were Third Screen Media, Ad Infuse, Millennial Media, Yahoo, Smaato, Mindmatics, Bango, Medio, JumpTap, Blyk, Admob, iLoopMobile, GreyStripe, Enpocket, and Rhythm.
Not to be outdone, Alcatel-Lucent and Motorola were also showing some future mobile advertising concepts that allow for cross medium advertising. For e.g. purchasing or activating advertising subsidized content on one device (like mobile) and viewing on another (like IPTV) and the experience is subsidized and interstitialized with advertisements.
Note: As some of you know, we have been involved in helping players in the value chain with mobile advertising strategy for the past two years. Well, we are now writing the book on it, literally! This book on Mobile Advertising is a collaboration with two brilliant co-authors and is going to be published by a major publisher. It will explore the key elements that will make mobile advertising tick. If you know of interesting case studies or people we should talk to, please do let us know. Check out our two part series on the subject published in Wireless World Magazine. Track the progress and become part of the conversation and the book at http://www.chetansharma.com/blog/category/mobile-advertising
Mobile TV With Mediaflos launch, the discussion in the US has changed from unicast/multicast to broadcast. With Cingular and Verizon adopting Mediaflo, it is hard to see DVB-Hs future in the US. Spent some time with Dr. Kamil Grajski, Chairman of the FLO forum. FLOs advantage comes from better channel switching time and slightly better spectrum efficiency. The goal is to pursue individual partnerships by geography that fuses spectrum, technology, and content. KDDI partnership is such an example. The quality is very impressive and the user experience raises the bar. With the introduction of clipcasting that enables some personalized content filtering on the device (e.g. Entire NASDAQ quotes are streamed but only your portfolio is displayed), broadcast can extract more value from the spectrum. Though Mediaflo has an edge, the future beyond the US shores is tough. Majority of Europe is going to go to DVB-H and similar standards. But, the potential customers are not only cellular operators but also include cable and satellite operators. Companies looking for Triple and Quad play strategies will have to come up with their mobile Broadcast strategy in the next couple of years. While Mobile TV has been in the headlines for some time, the penetration in the US remains quite low around 2% and represents less than $350M revenue in 2006 (European trends are similar). For the opportunity to scale, pricing and business models will need to be adjusted to market realities. Mobile TV has been around in Japan and Korea for a longer duration and has reached critical mass penetration. Unicast becomes expensive if the usage gets into double digits because pricing pressure doesnt allow for monetizing by the MB. Broadcast becomes the natural solution but it is limited by spectrum, less interactivity, and lack of handsets in the short-term. Clearly, hybrid models will continue to exist for the foreseeable future. For broadcast, it is about the spectrum first and the technology second.
Near Field Communication (NFC) VISA has been running NFC trials around the country for some time with VISA credit cards (30K) and POS terminals (50K). The goal is to do NFC on the phone. VISA also released numbers from their NA survey (n=800) 57% interested, 64% of Gen X/Y will consider switching carriers and credit card for mobile payment capability, by 5:1, consumers prefer to have charges on their credit card bill rather than their phone bill. The first generation of NFC phones is hitting the US market later this year. Kyocera demonstrated buying from a vending machine, downloading content, and doing internet transactions using an NFC-enabled prototype handset. It also had a biometric fingerprint sensor. Korea and Japanese market have been using phone as a wallet for some time (e.g. DoCoMos FeliCa) and it will be great to see such enhancements in Europe and North America. There is a demand for such solutions, Visa is providing leadership, and hopefully, the ecosystem will step up. Last year, in US, $7.2Trillion dollars worth of consumer financial transactions took place. Taking a small cut of this pie will be a big deal. Enabler to watch Ecrio.
Biometrics NTT DoCoMo introduced handset with biometric capability in 2003, we expect to see it introduced in the US in first half of 2008. AuthenTec has been dominating the market for both PC/laptops and mobile phones. Japan has reached about 10% penetration for biometric sensors in mobile devices. ROW is just getting started. HTC is introducing some devices (for the US market) with biometric sensors later this year.
Mobile Search Google and Yahoo announced their next release of mobile/local search. Googles attempts at mobile search reminds me of Microsofts early attempts to build an OS for mobile phones. I thought AskMeNows semantic search was pretty good though they are still working on indexing which can take a long time due to understanding content. With the recent purchases of BeVocal and TellMe, voice is getting its due attention. V-enable showed their local 411 app and Nuance talked about voice-enabled music search. Voice has become an integral part of any mobile search (and ad) strategy.
Interesting handsets While the industry is waiting for the June launch of iPhone, several new concepts and phones emerged at the show. Hopefully, NA operators got inspired from the handsets available in Asia and will bring some of that experience here. Samsung launched its dual-faced Ultra. While, it is a first for the industry, the user experience left lot to be desired, the Sharp touch UI is confusing. DoCoMo had the best selection on display. Flipstart is launching a $2000 mobile device (UMPC form factor), which has full PC running on it. It does have some clever user experience enhancements that make the usability acceptable but I am not sure if the price point will hold in the market where you can find an equally powerful laptop for half the price.
User Interface Apples iPhone has raised the bar on device user experience. Zenzui announced their UX technology (based on Microsoft IP) that takes us away from the boring menu-based navigation schemes. Punchcut showed whats possible utilizing the idle screen. Flipstart had some clever UX enhancements that I hope can get integrated into other forms of computing. Biometric sensors also surprisingly prove to be a good navigation element, better than 5 key dial and even iPOD dial.
Simplicity EMIs Nicoli had emphasized on simplicity of applications and services. AT&T’s COO Randall Stephenson echoed similar sentiments. It is a no-brainer, right? So, why do we make things inherently complex and hard-to-use? Hasnt Apple taught us enough? Ontelas mobile imaging platform is following on Apples footsteps. The technology allows you to take the picture and store it on any other device or destination within 30-60 seconds. No user intervention. It just works.
GYM is in the house It was the first CTIA with Google and Yahoo having their own booths, announcing their arrival. Their presence was telling of the battles to come. Microsoft has been coming to the show for some time but primarily to show their devices and talk about enterprise (email) applications.
LBS and Telematics There were a number of firms talking about telematics or navigation on the phone or devices for your car. Navteq, TeleAtlas, TeleNav, Inrix, Pharos, Kore, deCarta, and many others displayed their wares. On the consumer side, navigation is getting embedded into Local search apps which are enhancing the user experience quite a bit. FindIt and Google Maps are two examples. TCS is working on a framework for LBS based mobile advertising that allows carriers and users to control location availability to applications, something I wrote about back in 2001. Sprint has raised the bar by opening the APIs for developers and loosening the pricing friction. GSM operators are awaiting the arrival of OMA compliant phones. European carriers are targeting Christmas 2007 to launch several OMA SUPL devices while US will see such devices from Cingular next year. The best navigation was from Churchill Navigation which gives you a birds eye view in a fun-interactive experience.
WiMax. Sprint showed some potential launch devices for their WiMax service. Initially, the focus is limited to data cards and UMPCs. There will be restrictions on data usage and the move to handset form factor devices is uncertain. Samsung showed video conferencing at 12fps and VoIP on WiMax devices (PDA form factor). Since Intel put a boat load of money into Clearwire and Sprints endorsement, WiMax industry has been surging ahead but long-term viability is still not certain, how fast will device pricing drop?
China While China cant make up its mind on TD-SCDMA, Chinese manufacturers are increasingly competing with the big boys, the handset rollouts and infrastructure wins are a testament to that. They should just let go of their obsession with TD-SCDMA, there are plenty of opportunities for their manufacturers. Canada, Finland, Taiwan, Sweden, Spain, Ireland, Korea, and UK also had Intl pavilions.
The ecosystem friction The mobile data ecosystem tension is bubbling up. It was highlighted in the first session of the conference Jim Ryan (Cingular) vs. Larry Shapiro (Disney) well moderated by Tom Wheeler (past CTIA President). Carriers want control (some more than others) so that they can manage user experience and minimize customer support calls. Content companies want to bypass the carrier and go direct to the consumer. Things are improving but not at the pace everyone would like it to be. This debate is not going away. Perhaps, CTIA can demonstrate some leadership in kicking-off some content interoperability (and treat ad as content) initiatives.
Test equipment Whether it is entertainment or enterprise, very little attention is given to testing and monitoring data applications and services. Keynote launched its on-demand platform for testing and monitoring for developers who for $500/day can test on live devices anywhere in the world. This service can significantly lower down the cost of procuring handsets and doing testing.
Coolest booth In my travels around the world, in every major city, you cant escape the massive ads from Samsung and LG. CTIA is no different. The plastered ads all over and the booth from these two Korean companies were clearly the pick of the show with LG edging out its arch-rival by creating a gigantic music player.
Misc. News.
- Performance of the free WiFi at the convention center was much better than previous CTIAs.
- Community Currency - Hookmobile has been working with carriers and content owners to create variable currency for content branded, ads, or UGC. It is around Mobile Trading Community and using content to digitize trading cards, create some exclusivity and hence some viral effect. In future users can create their own trading cards for their social network. This is a good use for the MMS infrastructure that is collecting dust right now.
- Enterprise Mobile Advertising, NFC/Mobile Payments, and Mobile TV overwhelmed any discussion on enterprise mobility. Motorola (Symbol) launched their Enterprise Digital Assistant MC35.
- M&A scene was as dry as the Sahara desert, but several funding press releases hit the wires. Deal of the week Verizons $6 billion deal with Alcatel-Lucent.
- FMC. Lot of FMC discussion. As triple/quadplay and convergence get closer to reality, there is a lot of focus on FMC. From IPTV to Mobile to Vo[X] to Push-to-X, there were lots of demos and discussions.
- DoCoMo showcased their Bone Conduction Receiver Microphone that helps hearing in noisy locations and for people with hearing difficulties. Very cool.
- 3rd Dimension demonstrated a live mobile traffic cam application.
Your comments are always welcome.
Chetan Sharma
US Wireless Data Market Update - 4Q06 and 2006 March 4, 2007
Posted by chetan in : 3G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, CTIA, Carriers, Devices, European Wireless Market, India, Indian Wireless Market, Intellectual Property, Japan Wireless Market, MVNO, Mergers and Acquisitions, Messaging, Middleware, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile TV, Mobile Usability, Smart Phones, Speaking Engagements, US Wireless Market, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so farUS Wireless Data Market Update - 2006
US Wireless Data Market update 4Q06 and 2006
- US wireless data market continued its rapid growth in 2006. Wireless data service revenues jumped almost 84% to approximately $15.8B (from $8.6B in 2005). The service data revenues are likely to top $27B in 2007.
- The average data ARPU climbed 50% while the average voice ARPU declined 7% since EOY 2005. Overall ARPU declined 1% from 2005 levels.
- The strongest growth was experienced by Verizon which more than doubled its data revenues, up 101%, followed by Sprint up 69%, T-Mobile up 66% and AT&T (old Cingular) was up 62%. Except for Sprint, rest of the top 4 maintained a double digit growth rate Q-over-Q for the entire year (Sprints growth rate was marginally down to single digits in Q2 and Q3 but made up for the loss with a 19% increase in Q4).
- The top three carriers again garnered over $1B/quarter in data revenues for the second straight quarter, with Verizon coming out on top with $1.4B followed by AT&T at $1.3B.
- The US market added approximately 23M new subscribers or 1.92M subs/month. This puts the market at approx. 78% penetration. We will start to see the decline in market growth from here on.
- For the FY2006, Verizons data revenues were at $4.4B, AT&T at $4.25B, Sprint Nextel at $4B and TMO US finished the year at $1.6B.
- Verizon continued to dominate the 2006 ARPU sweepstakes with approximately 16% of its revenue coming from data services followed by Sprint and AT&T at 14.6%, and TMO US close behind at 13%. The average data ARPU is no at 14.5%. Sprint maintained its leadership in terms of raw data ARPU at $8.75. In fact, its CDMA data ARPU topped $12.
- Verizon gained the most number of customers in 2006 with 7.7M net adds followed by AT&T at 6.9M and TMO at 3.3M. Sprint at 1.6M, and Alltel with 1.56M rounded up the top 5.
- US 3G subscriber base continues to grow primarily due to strong showing by Verizon and Sprint Nextels aggressive push. AT&T also covered significant ground while TMO is expected to join the fray by EOY 2007. As discussed in our 2005 paper, 2007 is priming to be the inflection year for 3G in US (and Europe). At the end of 2006, 3G penetration stood at approximately 10%.
- US Off-net revenues for the year exceeded $750M.
- In 2006, Data ARPU of CDMA/EV-DO carriers was 21% higher than GSM/WCDMA carriers.
- Several high-profile MVNOs were launched over the course of last year and the overall results havent been favorable primarily due to poor execution, instant crowding effect, and competition from big 4. Mobile ESPN was first to bow out. Helio and AmpD have boasted $100 ARPU and 100K subscriber base but the burn rate and Cost of Customer Acquisition remains quite high.
- US wireless carriers maintained their strong showing vis--vis their peers worldwide. Verizon, Cingular, and Sprint maintained their ranking # 4, 5, and 6 respectively, amongst the top 10 operators worldwide in terms of total wireless data revenue generated for 2006. US is the only country with 3 operators who generated $4B or more in data revenues in 2006 and are going over $1B/quarter now.
- For the second straight quarter- TMO US outperformed its parent TMO Germany
- Though mobile enterprise data growth doesnt make headlines, there has been steady growth in deployments and revenues generated for carriers and product vendors. Verizon alone reported over 33% of its data revenues or $462M from the enterprise users in 4Q06.
- In terms of wireless investments, over $6.4B was invested in wireless related companies/startups in 2006. Source: Rutberg. Mobile TV/Video, Mobile Personalization, Mobile Search and Advertising, Semiconductor, Carrier infrastructure, Device design and development are hot areas. M&A activity also picked up quite significantly.
- For the year 2006, mobile shipments eclipsed 1B mark for the first time with Nokia leading the way at over 347M in phone sales.
- Smartphone penetration increased into double digits and is slowly approaching the inflection point.
- 2006 started the realignment for “quad-play” and “quintuple play” positioning in the market. Clearly, bundling enhances life value of the customer and lowers churn but do you do it through partnership or investment is the question on the table.
Global update (more details in our worldwide data market update coming out soon)
- The worldwide markets ended with approximately 2.6B connections and are going to top 3B by end of 2007. Significant growth is coming from India and China with India registering an astounding 7M net adds every month now. China is close behind at 6M/month. Overall, the world market is slowly approaching 50% penetration (should reach the target in first half of 2008) with approx. 41% penetration at the end of 2006.
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NTT DoCoMo became the first carrier to cross $10B/yr in data revenues in a given calendar year. It was followed by China Mobile at $8.6B.
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Worldwide Handset market share 2006: Nokia maintained its number one position with 36% market share. Motorola increased its market share by 4 percentage points to 23%, Samsung dropped a point to 11%. Sony Ericsson edged past LG with 9% while LG dropped to 6%. Nokia shipped over 100M handsets in 4Q06 (a first by any OEM). Nokias ASP dropped by $2 from EOY 2005 while Motorolas dropped by a whopping $27 putting the company in struggle mode. Sony Ericsson bucked the trend and increased its ASP by $17 showing a strong comeback.
- Most of the major carriers around the world have double digit percentage contribution to their overall ARPU from data services. Operators like KDDI, DoCoMo, and O2 UK are topping 30%.
- China Mobile became the worlds most valued operator surpassing Vodafone.
2007 Early signs
- iPhone: Whats in your pocket? The launch of iPhone after years of rumors captured the imagination and headlines of the industry. The bar has been raised.
- Mobile Advertising Tremendous activity (trials and press releases) in this area though there is confusion in the industry w.r.t the definition and the standardization process.
- LBS, GPS, and Navigation It is becoming mainstream. What! We will have to pay for it?
- Enterprise Applications Mobile Enterprise sector is quietly making strides with mobile becoming an integral part of corporate IT strategy though several challenges remain.
- Emerging Markets Growth is in emerging markets but who gets to make money?
- Content Interoperability Access to content across devices and networks is a challenge.
- Convergence Mobile is converging with Net, Net is converging with cable, wireless phone is converging with desktop phone, voice is converging with data, CBS is converging with YouTube, Skype is converging with Qwest, you get the picture.
- Others to watch NFC, WiMAX, FemtoCells, Mobile IM, 4G, Mediaflo.
Your comments are always welcome.
Chetan Sharma
Wireless Data ARPU January 3, 2007
Posted by chetan in : 3G, ARPU, BRIC, Carriers, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Indian Wireless Market, Intellectual Property, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, Mergers and Acquisitions, Messaging, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Search, Mobile Usability, Smart Phones, Strategy, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so farWireless World magazine published couple of my articles in their Jan-Feb 2007 issue. The first one deals with Wireless Data ARPU on a global basis. You might have read this during our release of”Worldwide Wireless Data Trends: Mid Year Update 2006″
US Wireless Data Market: 3Q06 update November 13, 2006
Posted by chetan in : 3G, AORTA, ARPU, Carriers, Devices, Infrastructure, Japan Wireless Market, M&A, MVNO, Mergers and Acquisitions, Middleware, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Search, Networks, Partnership, Smart Phones, Strategy, US Wireless Market, Worldwide Wireless Market , 2 comments
- US wireless data market continues to grow rapidly. As expected, for the first time, the top three US carriers (Verizon, Cingular, and Sprint Nextel) crossed $1B/quarter in data revenues. US is the only country with 3 carriers in the $1B/quarter data revenues group (7 carriers are in this group, only NTT DoCoMo is in the exclusive over $2B/quarter club). This takes the overall US wireless data service revenue tally to over $10.5B for the year (compared to $8.6B for entire 2005) and is expected to cross $15B in 2006.
- Verizon continues to dominate and has shown better performance than its rivals. It became the number one carrier in terms of service revenues and data revenues, and is heading steadfastly to claim the coveted carrier with most subs title by second half of 2007. Its data revenues for the year were approx. $3.1B followed by Cingular at $2.9B, Sprint Nextel at $2.8B, and T-Mobile US at $1.2B.
- Sprint retains its leadership position of highest wireless data ARPU in terms of absolute dollar amount at $7.75 but Verizon continues to lead in terms of % data ARPU at over 14%. Average data ARPU for the industry is now $6.8 or 13%.
- Overall ARPU (voice + data) increased slightly for the second straight quarter to $53.09 bucking the general trend of slow ARPU decline. Both Verizon and Cingular reported slight increase in voice ARPU. Average Overall ARPU was $53.09. Sprint led with $61 followed by T-Mobile at $51, Verizon at $50, and Cingular with $49.8.
- US 3G subscriber base continues to grow - primarily due to Verizon and Sprint Nextels aggressive push. With Cingular and T-Mobile joining the fray, the 3G growth is expected to accelerate with 2007 being the inflection year.
- In terms of EV-DO vs. WCDMA, EV-DO is quite ahead in both coverage and handset diversity. As of Sept 2006, there were 15 3G handsets available in the market (representing approximately 20% of the available handsets from big four), 14 EV-DO (10 from Verizon, 4 from Sprint Nextel) vs. 1 UMTS/HSDPA handset from Cingular.
- US added over 16M net subscribers from Jan-Sept 2006. This translates into 1.7M subs/month which is slightly lower than the 2005 average of over 2M/month. Given the fact that we have crossed 75% penetration, the declining rate is indicative of approaching saturation in the market.
- The top 4 US carrier account for 81% of the subscribers, 86% of the service revenues, and approximately 95% of the wireless data revenues.
- US Off-net revenues for the year are likely to exceed $750M.
- Data ARPU of CDMA/EV-DO carriers was 20% higher than GSM/WCDMA carriers.
- Several high-profile MVNOs were launched over the course last year and the overall results have been disappointing primarily due to poor execution, instant crowding effect, and competition from big 4. Mobile ESPN was first to bow out last quarter.
- US wireless carriers are steadily climbing in their wireless data performance as compared to their peers worldwide. Verizon, Cingular, and Sprint maintained their ranking # 4, 5, and 7 respectively, amongst the top 10 operators worldwide in terms of total wireless data revenue generated for the first nine months of 2006.
- T-Mobile US outperformed its parent TMO Germany for the first time by generating $434M in data revenues (compared to $425M by TMO Germany).
- In terms of total wireless data revenue for the first nine months of 2006, the #1 carrier worldwide is NTT DoCoMo which has maintained its position for a number of years. It has generated over $7.8B in wireless data revenues during the first nine months and will eclipse $10B mark for 2006.
- In terms of wireless investments, over $5.1B was invested in wireless related companies/startups from Jan-Sept 2006. Source: Rutberg. Mobile TV/Video, Mobile Personalization, Mobile Search and Advertising, Semiconductor, Carrier infrastructure, Device design and development are hot areas. M&A activity also picked up quite significantly.
- Worldwide Handset market share Q306: Nokia and Motorola dominated with 35.4% and 21.5% market share respectively. Samsung with 12.3% stands third. Source: Credit Suisse.
- Sprint’s cozing up with the cable guys has started the realignment for “quad-play” and “quintuple play” positioning in the market. Clearly, bundling enhances life value of the customer and lowers churn but do you do it through partnership or investment is the question on the table.
