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Future in Review (FiRe) 2009 roundup May 31, 2009

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, Carriers, European Wireless Market, IP Strategy, Indian Wireless Market, Infrastructure, Intellectual Property, International Trade, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, Mergers and Acquisitions, Microsoft Mobile, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Speaking Engagements, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

Over the course of last year, I did 25 different events, all of them focused on mobile. However, there was one event that truly stretched my thinking and worldview and that was the “Future in Review” conference (see last year’s review here) hosted by Mark Anderson, CEO of Strategic News Service (SNS). It exposes one to multidisciplinary subjects from global warming to nuclear weapons, from oceanography to medicine, from mobile to cloud, from economics to space rockets, it’s all here, nicely packed in a 3 day conference.

FiRe 2009 started with a brilliant keynote address from Prof. Veerabhadran Ram Ramanathan, Distinguished Prof of Climate Sciences and Director who is quite possibly the most authoritative person on the subject of climate change. He started his work way back in the 70s, decades before Al Gore made it glamorous. He is the one who has been measuring the impact on our planet one measurement at a time. He took us through the journey of his career culminating with a stark warning and a message of hope.

ram

Things have deteriorated to such an extent that if we don’t check the downward spiral, many of the significant sources of water such as the Gangotri Glacier in India will disappear in 10-15 years. If you stop and think about it - that’s just stunning and has calamity written all over it. If the source of Ganges disappears, the life that has built around the river for thousands of miles before it goes into the Bay of Bengal will be unsustainable. I grew up in Roorkee, a town on the banks of the Ganges, so the point hit home very strongly. I have been thinking about this issue since the PBS documentary “On Thin Ice” by David Brancaccio and Conrad Anker - one of world’s leading high altitude climbers. 75% of the world’s fresh water is stored in glaciers and at the current pace of destruction, within 15-20 years most will be severely depleted. And there are still people in high places who don’t get it.

It was not all doom and gloom but a ray of hope in his experiments that left us less depressed by the end of the keynote. He is working on a number of experiments to identify and cure the main sources of pollution and carbon in the atmosphere like the Project Surya to reduce air pollution and global warming by cooking with renewable sources. Or the unmanned drones (pictures above) to measure brown cloud particulate composition to get a handle on how pollution travels (did you know that it only takes 2-3 days for pollution in China to come over the US and then another 2-3 days to reach Europe and the cycle continues - pollution is flat and globalized - thinking that it is only a developed world problem or developing world problem is foolish, also foolish is waiting on the other party to move first).

Best wishes to Ram and his team to educate, illuminate, and find solutions to the toxic problem of our times.

(with Mark Anderson)

Next day we moved into the full-fledged conference mode with 30 min rapid fire sessions from 8-5. The morning started with Mark talking to Stephen Evans of BBC World Service (he is a great interviewer btw) about how we recover from the current crisis and if technology will lead the rebound? Answer is Yes! and we are already seeing signs of it and others in the industry like Bill Gates and John Chambers have been echoing the same thing as well. Later Mark interviewed Mark Hurd, CEO of HP who had a hard time sitting on his feet so the discussion was done standing up.

(Mark and Mark)

He emphasized that the future is in the packaging of software, services, hardware, and network rather than siloed solutions. Haven’t we heard that before. Hurd is a numbers guy and can recite P&L spreadsheet from memory. He suggested that we will see more of the same for the reminder of the year and that the services business is yielding good profits for HP now. There was also quite a bit of discussion on the latest buzz word “Cloud Computing,” what it means and how does everyone profit from it.

Several industry heavyweights like Werner at Amazon, Amitabh at Microsoft, Russ Daniels at HP were at hand to discuss what CC means to them. While there is a lack of industry consensus on the meaning, it more and more looks like the reallocation and redistribution of resources - physical and electronic in a manner that drives efficiency and cost reductions for startups to behemoths. From a consumer point of view, it will always be a blend of solutions that take into account the privacy and security of data. My recent hard drive failures has forced me rethink my backup strategy.

(My panel on the future of Wireless Broadband - Fred, Chris, David, Hugh, and Rama)

Later in the day, I had the privilege to host the only mobile session of the conference “The Future of Wireless Broadband” with five amazing panelists, Dr Fred Kitson, Corporate VP, Motorola, Chris Pearson, President, 3G Americas, Dr. Hugh Bradlow, CTO of Telstra, Dr. Rama Shukla, VP, Intel, and David Achim, President, SkyFiber. I have written about the subject in great detail over the last couple of years so it was great to bounce some questions to the best minds in the space. Highlights of the discussion:

Hugh, ever a purist, defined 4G as 100Mbps.
Not a surprise, but the latest surge of smartphones is causing the networks to panic and follow the upgrade path esp. for HSPA+, LTE, and WiMAX
Rama said that 4G is more about the business model than about the technology. A business model that enables and opens up the ecosystem at a low price thus fostering innovation and services in an accelerated way
Hugh added that it is also about the spectrum as what’s available and how it can be utilized for new services, new technologies, and new business models
Being a provider of the backhaul technology (a choke point in the network evolution), David discussed how the backhaul technology will need to be upgraded at an accelerated pace if we are to deliver 10Mbps+ speeds.
Fred brought in the perspective from the device and infrastructure provider and they are doing well with both WiMAX and LTE and that newer devices with much enhanced capabilities will drive more demand for bandwidth as well as the need to optimize applications to conserve batteries (which is another areas that needs innovation and breakthrough)
Chris gave a summary of the LTE efforts of operators around the world with folks like Verizon accelerating their rush to 4G due to end of lifecycle of EV-DO while others like ATT are pursuing a slightly slower approach trying to maximize the output from HSPA+.
Hugh has been playing with newer set of “alternate devices” like sensor networks, telemetry, projection glasses and so on and so forth and sees their importance in the growing ecosystem.
Australia is dedicating $43B to broadband expansion to 90% of the consumers in the country. An equivalent US investment will be close to $350B and we are investing $7B (stimulus package). As I have said before, the stimulus package was a huge missed opportunity and the govt. could have done much better.
The flat rate economy is not sustainable and something has to give in the future
The availability of broadband impacts consumer behavior and we are likely to see very diverse models and services emerge in the coming days

There were other host of areas I wanted to get into but you can only do so much in 30 minutes especially if you have great panelists. Wish I could have a day long session to discuss the nitty-gritty in much more detail. In any case, great panel and insights. Joe Sterling was at hand as well to do an artist rendition of our panel, art below.

As I mentioned before, the conference was filled with very interesting discussions like Ambassador Dennis Hays from Thorium Power discussing a world where the capacity of making nuclear weapons can be taken out of the nuclear materials to only focus on nuclear energy for energy purposes. Boy! won’t that change the geo-political dynamics. John Hagel talked about shaping strategy based on this recent HBR paper and his upcoming book on the subject.

Another highlight of the show is to gather the bright CTOs of leading corporations and give them a practical problem to solve like how to provide adequate safe water for future decades. Hosted by David Brin (cohost of TV ArchiTechs series), the panel delved into understanding the problem and delivering a framework for solutions. Not a typical session you see at a conference. Hey CTIA! how about putting together a problem solving panel for your next show?

I also was touched by the screening of the movie “The Cove” - winner of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award. More details here. Synopsis:

In the 1960’s, Richard O’Barry was the world’s leading authority on dolphin training, working on the set of the popular television program Flipper. Day in and day out, O’Barry kept the dolphins working and television audiences smiling. But one day, that all came to a tragic end.

The Cove, directed by Louie Psihoyos, tells the amazing true story of how Psihoyos, O’Barry and an elite team of activists, filmmakers and free divers embarked on a covert mission to penetrate a hidden cove in Japan, shining light on a dark and deadly secret. The mysteries they uncovered were only the tip of the iceberg.

Visit the Movie home page

It will change your perspective of how you view dolphins for ever and those trips to seaworld will be ever so more poignant filled with self-introspection. More power to the activists like Richard O’Barry and directors like Louie Psihoyos for opening our eyes and making a remarkable piece despite the challenge.

Another highlight of the conference is the interviews of top technologists and emerging startups by BBC’s Stephen Evans. Each gets a sound byte to wow the world (the session is streamed to 150M people). Highlights - Xerox - how can we solve legal cases with technology? Radar Networks - NOW is the unit of change. Vlingo - Speech is changing. IMANI-Ghana - SMS to prevent drug counterfeits, Cisco - virtual reality, voice, and data are the three different waves of innovation, the opportunity for collaboration is immense, Liberty - 5 yr projection 1Gbps wired, 100Mbps wireless peak throughputs, avg - 200Mbps for wired and 10Mbps for wireless, Microsoft - it will be the Chinese century, companies shouldn’t worry about protecting their marketshare in China but worry about protecting their share from Chinese players overseas, Smaato - Mobile Advertising is going to be the most prevalent business model in mobile, and SIMtone - make terminals dumb again and have the network cloud take care of everything.

The current financial crisis was also discussed at length. Many thought Europe is in denial and lack fundamental understanding of the crisis, that China and US are intertwined more than ever before and will have to work together to lead the world out of the crisis, India is largely untouched and better days are ahead thanks to the recent electoral results.

(Larry with Kamran, Mark with Elon)

Larry Brilliant suggested that the vaccines are the best investment in human history. Can’t argue with that one. He also suggested that the world should be thankful to Mexico for releasing the data early and often enough for other countries to take precautionary measures (sometimes to the extreme, I might add). They have suffered significantly and have been ridiculed but hopefully they serve as a lesson for the world in future pandemics.

If FiRe represents the best in multidisciplinary thinking, Elon Musk represents the rare breed of multidisciplinary entrepreneurs. The guy can shift from intricacies of electric cars to the design of rocket ships to solar energy with ease.

My best session was at Calit2. I think Larry Smarr has the best office with many 10Gbps links and coolest toys to play with, especially the 125Mpixel Hyperwall. It was also nice to interact with Michael Sims, Manager and Planner for the Mars Rover at NASA and his team using the network and the wall. You can see some cool images below. The second set of pictures are an image of human brain where you can pick out the single neurons with ease.

Also, interacted with the next generation surface and touch technology that uses pressure as an input as well. Below is me doing a destructive face surgery on a poor soul.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the 0-60 mps in 3.9s experience in Tesla Roadster. That car is a rocket.

Overall it was a great conference. I left more curious about more things. The conference also has an intimate feel to it where you can discuss burning issues with top experts and award winners over coffee, stroll, and meals. Registration for 2010 is open now.

TiECON Conference Roundup

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, Carriers, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Speaking Engagements, US Wireless Market, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

While I have been involved in various TiE events over the years, this was my first TiECOn down in the bay area. Even in this economy, this was a very well attended event with folks coming in from around the globe. The conference was quite diverse as well covering consumer web, internet infrastructure, cleantech, wireless, and software. I was there to moderate a panel on Wireless Monetization.

I was able to attend some really good keynotes, the most notable being Paul Maritz who talked about platforms, Tony Hsieh of Zappos on happiness, and Reid Hoffman, Linkedin. I found Martiz address on platforms and how the successful ones are generally created particularly interesting. He had some inside stories to share about Intel and Microsoft and how “accidental fortitude” seems to be the key of what became the changing platforms for our industry. Planning often doesn’t work that well when create mass-market phenomenon. The next areas of innovation and profits are: microfinance, biotech and information personalization.

What was unique and distinct about this conference was the “level of energy” amongst the entrepreneurs and participants. Despite the funding and economic climate, these guys were rushing to form the new company, start a new chapter, and create something unique in the market place. Some were serial entrepreneurs while others were just getting started.

The central theme of the conference was - if you were going to start a new business, this is the year, now is the time. While it has become a cliche, it is indeed true, best businesses are started in recessions and in the downturn - sometimes out of need other times out of opportunities. Bright brains rally and congregate to shake the cobwebs and look towards a new beginning. The energy was indeed infectious. My own consulting practice started during the last recession and 8 years later we are still around, so i say, all power and glory to the next generation of entrepreneurs who will create new technologies, paradigm shifts, and business models.

50 Startups were awarded the TiE50 awards - http://www.tiecon.org/home/tie

058

On to my panel - “Wireless Monetization - The Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow.”

My thanks to Arvind Gupta, Asha Vellaikal, and Savinay Berry for being the hosts and putting together the panel. Also, thanks to Ramneek Bhasin and Ujjal Kohli for their assistance.

The panelists were:

Michael Bayle, former Sr. Director, Mobile Monetization, Yahoo

Purnima Kochikar, Director, Nokia

Gary Kovacs, SVP, Sybase

Matt Litz, VP, Glu Mobile, and

Tina Unterlaendar, MD, AKQA

My questions were simply around what makes money, what’s working, and what’s coming? The brilliant panel had terrific insights.

Bottom line:

Appstores are a way to experiment with pricing, gives users more control
Different appstores might require different strategy for promotion, pricing needs to remain consistent across appstores, rev-shares with operators need to remain consistent
Mobile Advertising is in its infancy, budgets mostly in experimental campaigns but the potential remains huge. The biggest problem is reach and fragmentation
In the flat world, one must think of how the solutions will be adopted around the world not just in the developed nations
India and China are the volumes business, get used to it
Consumers are always looking for free so there is continuous price pressure, one has to consider alternate pricing or monetization strategies
Companies like mig33 have been successful in alternate modes of monetization, advertising is a smaller piece of the puzzle
Days of using mobile to purchase physical goods is coming
Mobile Payments using NFC is still a far cry for the US market

Overall a great panel and a great conference.

Global Wireless Data Market Update - 2008 April 28, 2009

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, Carriers, European Wireless Market, India, Indian Wireless Market, International Trade, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, M&A, MVNO, 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, Networks, Strategy, US Wireless Market, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so far

Global Wireless Data Market Update - 2008

Download PPT (1.9MB)

Download PDF (3.1MB)

http://www.chetansharma.com/globalmarketupdate2008.htm

Executive Summary

The Global Wireless Markets continued to grow rapidly especially in India and China where the carriers (together) are adding over 20M new subscriptions every month. India crossed the 400M subscription mark this month while China whizzed past 650M in Q109. Overall, the global subscriptions penetration edged past 60%. During 2008, revenues further tilted towards data services, increasing 17% from 2007 EOY. The overall global mobile revenues (including equipment) for the year reached the 1 Trillion dollar landmark in 2008, with over $830 billion attributed to services revenues. Data revenues now account for over 20% of the global service revenues.

For some leading operators, data is now contributing close to 40% of the overall revenues. However increase in data ARPU is not completely offsetting the drop in voice ARPU for most operators. From the true and tested SMS messaging to the new services such as Mobile Advertising, Social Networking, Commerce, Mobile Wallet, and others, different services helped in adding billions to the revenues generated in 2008. The US market expanded its lead over Japan in mobile data service revenues for the year and is unlikely to cede ground in the months to come.

The success of Apple’s Appstore (1B downloads in 9M across 37M devices is not surprising but still impressive, look for another growth bump in July) led to appstore mania across the ecosystem with every major player in the ecosystem holding ambitions for Applesque success leading to healthy competition and hopefully more innovation. Google’s Android also kept the industry chatter on the high with a slew of new devices slated for 2009. The ease of use of applications developed for G1 on the new devices will define Android’s role in the ecosystem. If successful, it will decimate the weaker ones from the equation going forward.

WiMAX vs. LTE debate took over the EV-DO vs. WCDMA talk and while the majority of the industry is consolidating around LTE; open-platform advocates are watching the arrival of WiMAX with great interest. However, the down economy is delaying the establishment of Clearwire’s nationwide footprint.

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 with added insights from our work in various global markets.

Service Revenues

US extended its lead over Japan as the most valuable mobile data market in service revenue with US adding $34B vs. $29B for Japan in 2008. China with $15.8B was ranked number 3. US registered the highest growth amongst the top 3 with over 40% increase from EOY 2007 levels followed by Japan at 25% and China at 21%.
The top 10 nations by service revenues are: US, China, Japan, UK, France, Italy, India, Germany, Spain, and Russia.
The top 10 nations by data service revenues are: US, Japan, China, UK, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Australia, and Korea.
NTT DoCoMo continues to dominate the wireless data revenues rankings with over $4B in data services revenue in Q408 and almost $15B for the year. Almost 42% of its overall revenue now comes from data services. DoCoMo also crossed the 90% 3G mark last month.
NTT DoCoMo was followed by China Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, KDDI, Sprint Nextel, Softbank Mobile, T-Mobile USA, O2 UK, and China Unicom to round up the top 10 operators by wireless data service revenues. It marked the first year for T-Mobile USA to be in the top 10 list as it went past SK Telecom. All the top 10 carriers exceeded $2B in data revenues for the year 2008.
The top 10 global operator groups now account for over 60% of the global mobile data revenues.
For the last couple of years, NTT DoCoMo has been the only carrier exceeding $10B in yearly mobile data revenues. In 2008, as expected it found company with China Mobile, Verizon Wireless, and ATT in the exclusive $10B club. KDDI missed out by a whisker.
Data revenues for the top 10 operators increased 27% from EOY 2007 and now account for almost 48% of the global mobile data revenues though their subscriber share is around 30%.
The biggest jump in data revenues was experienced by the US carriers – ATT and Verizon Wireless respectively. They were followed by China Mobile. (For a complete US Market Update, please see our Q208 research note).
NTT DoCoMo regained its position vis-à-vis KDDI w.r.t. mobile data revenues. Their data coordinates stand at ($27, 42%) and ($25, 38%) respectively.
Most of the operators in developed nations are contemplating future strategies to boost data revenues such that the decline in voice revenues is at least compensated for. There are very few operators who have experienced increase in overall ARPUs. Comparing the ARPU for last 2 years, amongst the top operators, only Singtel, Rogers, T-Mobile UK, O2 Germany, O2 UK, Verizon Wireless and ATT experienced increase in both overall and data ARPU.
China reported approximately $16B in data revenues for 2008 and the percentage contribution is around 27%, data ARPU is around $2. For India, data ARPU continues to stay around $0.50 as most of the new adds are voice only subscribers and there is continued price pressure in the market.
China Mobile remains the most valuable telecom operator with over $180B in market cap. It is followed by Vodafone at around $98B. Telecom groups in mature markets are under enormous pressure to either come up with a global expansion strategy or accelerate their existing plans. The current recession has slashed their market caps by 20-30%.
In 2008, SMS’s 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%.
NTT DoCoMo has been at the cutting edge of the mobile data evolution by creating new markets and exploring new technologies and social experiments ahead of almost anybody else in the market. We looked at the data revenue growth at NTT DoCoMo since the introduction of i-Mode almost 10 years ago. During the last 9 years, overall ARPU has declined 33% though data ARPU increased over 1800% and now accounts for almost 40% of DoCoMo’s service revenues. The voice ARPU has declined almost 60%. Our long history with the Japanese and Korean markets has taught us that while the individual strategies in each market will differ, one should study the trends and technologies in these markets to get a sense of what’s coming.

ARPU

Most of the major operators around the world have double digit percentage contribution to their overall ARPU from data services. Operators like DoCoMo, and Softbank are over 42%. KDDI, 3 Australia, 3 Italy, 3 UK, O2 UK, Singtel, and 3 Sweden exceeded 30%.
ATT reported the highest increase in data ARPU from 2007 with 32% growth. Other notable percentage increases in ARPU were from KDDI, DoCoMo, Softbank Japan, 3 Australia, Vodafone Italy, Rogers, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile Austria. The biggest drop in percentage terms were registered by the Indian operators with average data ARPU dropping to $0.50. In terms of absolute dollar amount, NTT DoCoMo leads the pack with $27 data ARPU.
The biggest percentage contribution by data ARPU has been consistently registered (since mid 2002) by two Philippines carriers – Smart Communications and Globe Telecom with over 56% (or $3) contribution coming from the data services. Philippines is also one of the most active messaging nations where users average a message/hr round the clock.

Subscriptions

The global mobile markets continue to grow at an explosive pace touching 4B subscriptions by 2008 up 23% from EOY 2007 levels and will likely cross the 5B mark in 2010. Overall the global mobile subscriptions now represent over 60% of human population on Earth.
China and India continued their red-hot growth throughout 2008. Combined, they added 212.8M new subscriptions with India edging China by 15% for the first time in yearly net-adds.
Earlier this month, India also crossed the 400M subscriptions mark, only the second nation to do it after China. In total, China is still years ahead. In the meantime, US crossed the 90% subscriptions mark earlier this year.
In March, India edged past the US to become the number two wireless market (by subscriptions) in the world. In the last two years alone it has added almost 175M new subscriptions (in comparison China added 169M and the US market added 39M). For the past 7 months, India has been displaying Phelpsesque like flair in setting and beating its world record for 6 times, twice exceeding 15M/month net-add. For the last 7 months, the market has been exceeding 10M net-adds/month with Mar 09 being at a whopping 15.6M making it a record for monthly net-adds in a given country at anytime in the history of the industry or any industry for that matter (breaking its previous record set in Jan09).
In the last 10 years, the growth patterns in the mobile industry have completely reversed. In 1998, the developed world accounted for 76% of the subscriber base, in 2008; the percentages have flipped with developing world now accounting for 76% of the subscriber base and are likely to increase to 85% by 2018.
The top 10 nations by subscriptions are: China, India, US, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, Germany, Japan, and Pakistan.
China Mobile with 457M (as of Dec 08) remains the #1 carrier in terms of the total number of subscriptions followed by Vodafone at 255M and Telefonica with 196M subscriptions. América Móvil, Telenor, China Unicom, T-Mobile, Orange, MTS, and Bharti Airtel are the next five largest telecom groups in the world.
As far as 3G is concerned, there were over 400M 3G users (72% of them are WCDMA users vs. EV-DO). Both Japan and Korea continue to expand their 3G base with both reporting over 90%+ penetration.

Others

Messaging still accounts for the lion-share of data service 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 gradually chipped away the share from messaging. Alternate devices with wholesale cellular agreements are also flooding the market. In Japan, Mobile Commerce is expected to do much better than Mobile Advertising. 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.
Nokia eclipsed 100M/quarter unit sale in each of the four quarters. It has sold over 468M handsets in 2008 (up 7.2% from 2007), more than the next three handset manufacturers combined. Nokia’s global market share stayed in the 38-41% range. Samsung at 15%, Motorola with 9%, LG with 9.3% and Sony Ericsson with 8% rounded out the top five. Despite the slowdown, the industry eclipsed 1B in handset sales in 2008 and will do so again in 2009.
China and India represent the biggest opportunities for the Infrastructure providers. China launched 3G across the three operators earlier this year. India is also going through its 3G spectrum policy and is likely to resolve some of the contentious issues shortly. Some of the biggest infrastructure contracts are coming from these two countries as they look to expand coverage into rural areas.
Deployment of 3.5G technologies is in full swing. However, it is the discussion of 4G that is occupying the headlines. Many larger operators have laid out their plans for deploying LTE starting next year. Meanwhile, Clearwire has been rolling out its WiMAX network, one market at a time.
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 Verizon’s “Open Network” initiative elevated the consternation in the ecosystem. Apple launched its 3G iPhone and Android’s first device was introduced in the form of T-Mobile G1. Many more Android devices are slated to be released in 2009.

Your feedback is always welcome.

Thanks.

Chetan Sharma

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

Ps. We will have an update on the impact of recession on the mobile industry in our US Q109 update next month.

NAB recap - Open, Personalization, Advertising April 26, 2009

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, Carriers, Devices, European Wireless Market, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Privacy, Speaking Engagements, Strategy, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so far

Last week, I was invited to present and moderate at the biggest Broadcaster’s show - the NABSHOW in Las Vegas. Compared to CTIA, the show was almost double with registered attendees exceeding 83K. For me, it was a day trip. I was involved with the Mobile Entertainment Summit being held on the 22nd.

The day started with the keynote from Matt Oomen, VP of Product and Technology development at Sprint Nextel. He laid the foundation for the day’s discussion with some overarching themes of Open Platforms, Open Devices, Social Networking, Personalization, and Broadband capabilities of the mobile industry. There were a number of great panels discussing the growth in the mobile video and applications space with panelists from all across the value chain. The bottom-line:

For mobile video to succeed, we need to reduce the number of global standards so that there is some standardization for OEMs and content providers instead of running around integrating new standards every year.
People didn’t think that was going to happen anytime soon
Apple’s Appstore has been a boon to some developers as they have refocused their monetizing strategies from advertising to subscription or charging for downloads which is good for the industry as it can diversify and experiment more. A company that has been successful at that is Glu Mobile
Zynga has an interesting model of social networking based games. The games are free but as you get more involved and want to raise the stakes, the price goes up, quite significantly with over $50 chips, etc. Idea is that a small population can fund a large base involvement for free
Texting has been quite successful with mobile marketing and advertising. Hipcricket and Singlepoint with support from Entravision and Fox argued (and rightly so) that to be successful, broadcasters should start developing their audiences and provider personalized services.

Next up were two of my panels. First one was on Mobile Trends being jointly presented with Brian Jurutka, VP Comscore. The session was moderated by Jay Frank, SVP, CMT. Brian presented some really interesting data on mobile video in the US market. A good number of video downloads are happening sideloaded and overall usage remains low.

Another interesting tidbit was for 3G vs. non-3G users

And while iPhone helped change the ecosystem, video usage looks quite similar to G1. Another interesting data point was that the video consumption tapers off with time for users meaning that content providers need to keep users engaged with different strategies.

I presented data on the overall US market and how that is evolving and ended up some observations and recommendations.

Next up was my panel discussion on how Mobile Innovations will impact Mobile Entertainment Experiences. I had the honor of moderating four very clued-in folks

Rebecca Hanson, VP, Strategic Initiatives, Sprint. She has been behind the WiMAX launch

Sajal Sahay, Director, Product Marketing, T-Mobile USA. He has been behind the Android G1 launch

Tim Chang, Principal, Norwest Venture Partners. He has been involved in the mobile industry for over 10 years as an investor and sits on several technology company boards and is very active in discussing emerging trends

and Raj Ray, Director, VAS, Qualcomm. He has been behind developing the VAS business for Qualcomm globally, esp. in the emerging economies

Salient points of our discussion:

Broadband provides great incentive for user to experiment with new apps and content
Appstore while increasing fragmentation will also increase competition and hence innovation
Openness drives innovation and carriers play an important role in driving that
For 3G, Usage growth is much higher than revenue growth so we need to figure out ways to bring them in alignment
Social networking needs to be embedded into everything
Role of alternate devices like kindle and cameo is increasing and we will see all sorts of vertically integrated devices. More and more consumer electronics devices will have cellular connection
Thanks to iPhone, interesting gaming models are emerging and gaming might provide guidance on how the ecosystem will develop
Data MVNOs anyone?
Emerging economies are bringing forth some interesting monetization and device technologies that will benefit everyone like high-end smartphones for less than $50
Advertising based monetization model is not everyone. One has to scale first
The biggest areas to invest: Personalization, Audience Measurement, QoS related, Payments, Android Games, Carrier agnostic user profile platforms, mobile cloud computing, augmented reality and much more

Overall a great show. I noticed that even Google had a booth (was absent at CTIA). Something to put on the calendar for next year. My thanks to Michael and Zahava for inviting me to participate.

My next events are at:

TiECON - May 16th - Mobile Monetization

Future in Review - May 20th - Future of Mobile Broadband

mHealth - May 22nd

Hope to see some of you there

Behind the Millennial Advertising Numbers April 17, 2009

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Search, US Wireless Market, Worldwide Wireless Market , 5 comments

Earlier today Millennial Media released the numbers form their mobile advertising ad network for the first time and it quite interesting data for everyone to take a look at, esp. the advertisers.

First, let’s quickly talk about the numbers. From the Q109 numbers, for the US market, it seems like Millennial outpaced other ad-networks including perhaps Admob (only Jan and Feb numbers are available as of this writing) as Millennial surpassed 10 Billion impressions for the quarter.

Thus, officially, we have a horse race.

But more importantly, Millennial’s numbers reveal something rather interesting, the stuff we have been talking about for sometime. In fact, we had a whole chapter in our book discussing the 5 Point Framework for Mobile Advertising: Reach, Engagement, Targeting, Viral, and Transactions. Here are some of the case studies we discussed in the book

So far, industry has been enamored with “Impressions” only. We had argued that the quality of advertising increases as you start including other factors in the technology and design of campaigns.

The graph that really caught my eye is below: (all graphs below this point are copyright Millennial Media)

The Audience refers to the user population that is built based on behavior and related attributes. The value is high and the performance is three times the average. Compare this to Channel (news, sports, etc.) targeting or more generic run of the network categories and you see a significant performance lift for the advertiser and a revenue boost for the value chain. And it looks like because of the performance, the Audience category dominates in Millennial’s network.

Another interesting data is what happens post-click. Impression alone means little though only mobile it is till many times better than online but we need to figure out how users interact (or get them to interact) once impression is landed and the figure below shows the distribution. Once you start comparing various campaigns and variables, a really interesting pattern will emerge which essentially will be the best practices for the industry.

I think the best part is the measurement of user session or time which is key to the engagement metrics. Millennial reported 4:48 minutes of average user session time (90th percentile). Also, 58% requests used some level of geo info for targeting which is quite good. The handset mix was more distributed compared to the Admob network and the carrier share provided some interesting glimpse into the ecosystem as well (Sprint leads the pack). Device input mix shows the how touch devices are starting to make an impact on the device ecosystem.

Overall great educational material for all in the mobile advertising ecosystem to see what is happening at a granular level. I hope other networks will also publish their traffic details and we will also start to get more metrics around Targeting, Virality, and Transactions, so we can learn what works under what circumstances. This will give all the ammunition the advertisers and agencies need to wake up their analog counterparts.

Next Step - Standardization and Auditing.

Carnival of Mobilists #169 April 12, 2009

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, CTIA, European Wireless Market, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Speaking Engagements, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 7 comments

Last week at CTIA in Las Vegas I had the opportunity to meet many of my friends and colleagues, old and new. Such events remind us that it is the people you associate with that makes our industry vibrant and exciting. This week, it is my pleasure to showcase and celebrate the thinking and work of my friends, many of whom I have known for many years. Most have written important books for our industry and others have at least a tome in them.

Picture Tomi T Ahonen 3G Strategy Consultant, his book Services for UMTS out in March 2002 My Photo

Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media: Cellphone, cameraphone, iPhone, smartphone Product Details Cover image for product 0470239530

In no particular order, they are:

First up is Ajit Jaokar, co-author of recent book “Social Media Marketing,” discussing an important issue of opening up the carrier network. He writes an in-depth post on how telecom companies should be thinking about open as we get into the 4G era. Very Interesting commentary.

Tomi Ahonen is one of the most prolific writers I have come across in the wireless industry. He has written more words than many read in a lifetime. Off late, our industry has been wondering if they will ever be able to monetize mobile social networking. Tomi in his usual flair points through case studies and examples, a way forward. Also, checkout his indispensable Pearls series.

At CTIA (BRIC event), I was impressed with the discussion of Zeebo by Mike Yuen at Qualcomm. Martin Sauter, author of Beyond 3G, an important book of the evolving ecosystem, writes about Zeebo: Gaming for the next billion.

Russ Buckley, a tireless advocate of Mobile Advertising and all things mobile pens a very interesting piece by tweaking George Orwell’s classic “1984.” Pour your tea and dive into the post.

Judy Breck, author of several books including the latest - Intertwingle, is the energy behind the Carnival who keeps all of us straight. She is also a big proponent of learning and education. A big cheer for her. She talks about Russ Buckley’s post on the new Sprint’s commercial.

Lately, our industry has been consumed by 4G. Volker Hirsch takes a look at how 4G might influence the mobile gaming environment.

Ernest Doku of Omio.com also writes about the theme that Ajit picked up - Should networks fear Skype?

James Cooper at mjelly summarizes the key iPhone app stats.

Andrew Grill, a great evangelist for the mobile advertising industry discusses the recent survey by KPMG which has some key insights into the mobile ad market.

Barbara Ballard, author of Designing the Mobile User Experience and an important voice of reason in the mobile industry writes about her latest initiative on mobile SEO. Check it out and contribute.

Tam Hanna looks at the Symbian ecosystem from a developer’s point of view.

James Pearce of dotMobi raises some interesting thoughts regarding mobile maps.

My own 2c to the conversation is in the form of my CTIA 2009 Roundup.

You can catch many of the the colleagues listed above at the upcoming Future Technologies Conference on April 24th.

Finally, a shout-out to our friends at MOMO Amsterdam. They host some of the best MOMO events anywhere in the world and have a great line-up coming up on June 1.

I will encourage you to add these blogs to your RSS feed, follow these guys on twitter, chase them at conferences, and call upon them when in doubt.

Next carnival is going to be hosted at TamsBlackberry. Be sure to create and submit your best posts.

Until next time, best wishes.

CTIA 2009 Roundup April 6, 2009

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, CTIA, Carriers, Devices, European Wireless Market, IP, Indian Wireless Market, International Trade, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, Mergers and Acquisitions, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Gaming, Mobile Search, Mobile TV, Mobile Usability, Speaking Engagements, Strategy, US Wireless Market, Unified Messaging, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so far

CTIA 2009 Roundup

http://www.chetansharma.com/ctia2009.htm

CTIA 2009 in Pictures

CTIA provided a boost to the Las Vegas economy by hosting the 2009 International CTIA in the sin city. Prior to the show, we knew that the attendance will be down due to the economy and it was clear from day 1 that it will be a less busy event. Attendance was probably down 30-40%, Exhibitors seemed down by a good percentage as well with many opting for meeting rooms instead or skipping the show altogether. The big double story compounds were downgraded to smaller fields. Samsung and LG didn’t plaster the town with massive banners, taxis weren’t covered in advertisements. It was not all bad though, the probability of being trampled by humans reduced, taxi lines were shorter (though no less annoying) and the quality of the show was still pretty good. We had a jam packed schedule. This note summarizes the observations from the show.

Numbers CTIA released its semi-annual numbers. For 2008: 270M subscribers, $148 billion in service revenues, $32 billion in data revenues (just for reference, this is more than the total global Hollywood box-office revenue which came in at $28B), 2.2 trillion in MOU, 1 trillion TXT messages. You can checkout our annual US data market analysis which was released last month here.

Etech Contest – Prior to the event, CTIA invited us to judge the Emerging Technology Contest. It was fun reviewing the various entries. The award winners are announced here. Congrats to all.

My CTIA started early with a couple of sessions at the pre-conference event - BRIC Mobile Market Summit. The quality of the discussion was pretty good. I gave a talk on the Opportunities in the Indian and Chinese mobile markets and discussed where the opportunities in these two fastest growing markets as well as dispel some myths that engulf most companies.

After that, I joined the panel with other experts in the industry to have a lengthy discussion of the trends and opportunities in these markets including Latin America.

Unfortunately, our workshop on “Monetizing Mobile User Generated Content” got canceled due to low attendance or maybe folks are just not interested in monetizing these days. I will be discussing some of the similar themes in my talk at the NAB Show (MES) in Vegas on 22^nd April. I will also be moderating a panel on Innovations in Mobile Experiences.

If interested, clients of Chetan Sharma Consulting can request the slides from any of the talks.

Themes: The main themes of the conference were: Broadband (primarily around 4G and LTE with sprinkles of WiMAX) and data usage, Green, Mobile Health, Appstores, Rich Communication and Social Networking.

Broadband

4G – My first 4G project was back in 2003 for NTT DoCoMo when 4G didn’t even enter industry’s vernacular. Most operators were figuring out their 3G strategies. Six years hence, we have come a long way. Broadband, 4G, and LTE were the core themes of the conference and there was visible progress from the last CTIA with more test results, actual devices, and real demos. While the current reports suggest that some form of deployment will take place in 2010, we don’t expect the “real” commercial deployments before 2011, LTE voice will even take longer. So, where does this leave WiMAX. With each passing day, the role of WiMAX as a niche technology is affirmed. The backhaul bottleneck problem is also becoming prominent and the enhancement of backhaul is behind the RF infrastructure to provide any substantive improvements in data throughputs at least in the near future.

I will be moderating a panel on 4G at Future in Review (FiRE) conference considered by Economist the best Tech conference on the planet (panelists include executives from Telstra, Qualcomm, Clearwire, and others) to get delve deeper into the evolution of 4G.

The Broadband Stimulus – Many companies are eying the $8B broadband stimulus package. The process of how they are going to be granted seems chaotic with unintended consequences. My feeling is that it is a lost opportunity. Instead of just looking at incremental enhancements, US could have been bold and improved existing and new broadband deployments by over 50-60 times. (More discussion here)

Mobile Health

Keynotes – I thought Dr. Eric Topol, Director, Scripps gave perhaps the most effective keynote addresses in recent memory. Keynotes are generally a drab affair. Instead of inspiring through vision many put the audience to sleep with their product announcements. Dr. Topol’s speech was so rich in content, his words were filled with such passion, and his articulation was so inspiring that most entrepreneurs in the room were energized to make a difference. I commend CTIA for inviting him. He is joining Qualcomm’s Don Jones (a fierce proponent of mHealth) and others to form the first ever Wireless Health Institute in San Diego. Expect some really cool stuff to come out of them. However, to be most effective, health institutions need to get on board with the program starting with the simplest of things like “txt messages.” Come on folks, move into the 21^st century!

Health – For the first time, there was significant discussion on mobile’s impact on the health care industry. My masters is in Biomedical Engineering so it is great to see the marriage between the two industries. I strongly believe if we can get past some of the bureaucratic nonsense, mobile can have a significant lasting impact on the quality of life and healthcare in both the developing and developed nations. Some of the stuff is really amazing (iBrain, iPill, iShoe, you get the picture). I will have more discussion on the subject in the coming days.

Applications and Services

You say appstore, I say appworld, you say market, I say marketplace – I have been working on appstores for so long that I can’t help but be amused by the recent frenzy of appstores sprouting like mushrooms. I think overall it is good for the industry as each of the providers will push each other in areas of innovation and pricing models thus opening up the industry for developers and consumers. However, the fragmentation also increases as a result and something has to give because developer’s attention and resources are finite. There aren’t many companies who can pull-off a successful developer program (this is one area where Microsoft has some advantage because of significant experience in cultivating developers). Apple’s model has already forced carriers to accelerate their short-term and long-term strategies. T-Mobile USA saw the writing on the wall earlier than most and is further along in its plans. Current implementations are still quite primitive with much potential for improvement.

Rich Communication – Talked to some companies (Aylus, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, etc.) about rich communication services that integrate various experiences on the mobile device including chat, voice, data, social networking, video, etc., onto a single screen. The user experience is enhanced leading to newer sources of revenues for operators.

Netbooks also seem to be on operator roadmaps with 33% of these devices expected to be sold through the carrier channels in 3 years. Will Nokia and Motorola get active in this space? Or will the new entrants use netbooks to enter the phone market? Inspired by Kindle, many players are getting bolder and investing in application specific devices (a trend we wrote about in our mobile advertising book last year). Examples: a cool new wireless video game console – Zeebo being launched in Brazil and nuvifone being launched by Garmin and Asus.

Mobile Social Networking – Some interesting social networking features and functions are coming down the line. I am convinced that carriers need to treat social networking as a core service rather than a bolt on application. I almost wrote a book “The Facebook Effect” but 3 books in a year were too many so taking a break for now. (Maybe the next one will be “The Twitter Effect”).

Mobile Advertising – Though we have been involved with several mobile advertising projects, at the show, it felt the segment excitement was quite flat and many companies are struggling to stay in business. The consolidation hasn’t come yet but things are likely to start changing in the next few months. I also think that industry needs to start thinking about much more compelling and engaging closed-loop creative experiences rather than just impressions. Also, third party verification is needed (who is going to step up?). Finally, the role of the mediation layer is becoming important. The real substantive announcement came before CTIA with four major US operators agreeing to collaborate on best practices. Kudos to MMA for orchestrating the agreement.

Green

Green is the new black – With so much focus on cleantech and global warming, vendors are stepping up and making a dent in the carbon put out by the industry. There were some really cool solar chargeable devices as well as applications that keep the users green-aware. Being green is a competitive advantage.

Miscellaneous

Devices – The quality of devices that coming out keeps getting better. Stuff coming out from Samsung, LG, and INQ is pretty darn cool (Motorola, Nokia, Palm have some good stuff coming out as well). There were some neat concept phones on display as well (I know, I know, we are ways out but I think we will see some of these come to light sooner than we think). I thought one of the coolest new device was from LG – GD900 with transparent keypad. Samsung’s DLNA and AMOLED based devices were also quite good. They were also showing the WiMAX Smartphone Mondi. ZTE is also planning to enter the US market in a big way. While new Androids were hard to spot, several of them are scheduled to be released in the next few months.

NTT DoCoMo – Each CTIA, I love spending time in DoCoMo’s booth as they are always at the cutting edge of what’s to come. Downloading your digital key to your handset to open your hotel room by waving your phone, controlling every piece of equipment in your home via your cell phone, i-concier: your friendly on-screen butler, separable phones were some of the highlights.

Best booth: Most Creative – SpinVox, Most Hip – LG

Interesting companies – While it is difficult to meet each of the upcoming startups, couple of companies caught our attention: Waze out of Israel with its crowd-sourcing based approach to real-time traffic information and Kovio with its ability to lower the cost of printed silicon.

3G connection – My 3G connection was so good throughout the show that I didn’t need to lug my laptop around and did 100% of my communications for 3 days from my phone.

Your feedback is always welcome.

Thanks

Chetan

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

The rise of the Facebook phones February 15, 2009

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Ecosystem, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so far

We are entering a new era of mobile devices where applications might define the brand of the mobile phones. When was the last time you remembered a phone by an application, probably, Skype Phone launched by 3 UK. 3 UK again showed off its innovation colors by spinning off INQ to launch a “Facebook Phone.” Well, now at MWC, we are likely to see a number of announcements which will be along the same lines. The battle ground for all these new generation of app phones is the control over the “address book” which I have long said is one app which is used the most but where innovation has been lacking the most. Address book is the starting point for most communication on the mobile phone today. With the likes of Facebook integration, the address book is taken to the next step. Of course, there will be a tighter integration of the address book and the Facebook app.

So, what’s next? Myspace phone, Twitter phone, iTunes phone … err we already got that one nailed ..

Is Kindle the new iPhone? February 10, 2009

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, IP Strategy, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 2 comments

Amazon is slowly but surely trying own the eBook market and has done well with its cautious Kindle launch. However, to have the platform universally adopted, there are still a number of short comings and challenges.

Price - It is still $160 overpriced. Not a mass market device just yet.

Book economics - There will be resistance from the publishers - the reach of the platform is not there so they are making it up in volumes

Beyond CDMA - To have a global subscriber base, amazon needs GSM variants quickly

Apple - iReader could blow out Amazon off the market if it doesn’t secure the market quickly

Google - They are getting the content digitized, they have the OS, they have the OEM partnerships, they have the biggest reach available to mankind, they have the analytics, they can deliver a knock-out blow

Amazon IMHO is making the classic market-reach miscalculation. They should go aggressive in seeding the market with the device and make money on the downloads. The bigger reach will enable them to experiment with some really interesting advertising business models as well.

Event Recap: PNWS (Vancouver) and Location Based Advertising (PARC) January 30, 2009

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, Carriers, IP Strategy, Indian Wireless Market, Location Based Services, Mergers and Acquisitions, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Search, Patent Strategy, Speaking Engagements, US Wireless Market, Wi-Fi, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 2 comments

My event calendar this year started like last year - with a trip to Vancouver to attend Pacific Northwest Wireless Summit (PNWS) - the best wireless conference in Canada (18 and 19 Jan) . The weather was clear and sunny for a change, the drive beautiful, and the views from the conference rooms just drop-dead-gorgeous. The first day was Leadership summit where over 50+ C-level executives participated in discussing the state of affairs in the wireless industry and how to respond to the slumping economy.

Canada seems to be hit much harder than US by the slumping economy especially eastern Canada with the likes of Nortel struggling to survive.There were several interesting presentations and discussions. Some of the comments that stood out -

Steve Morley (former VP Qualcomm) - Qualcomm didn’t have any patents, any strategy, any product plan, any VC money but had a good group of people who figured things out. So, entrepreneurs shouldn’t feel disheartened and go with their dreams. The things that will get traction are - productivity tools, things that provide comfort, social connection tools, and simplifiers.

Wang Jing (Chair TD-SCDMA Forum, China) The ultimate battleground is LTE, TD-SCDMA is just a stepping stone to 4G. The mobile data market won’t pick up for the next 2 years

Laurence Dunbar (Partner, Fasken Martineau) Regulations can create new opportunities for new players and incumbents alike but it is important to understand the implications

Howard Donaldson (VP Disney) - It is very important to capture IP to maximize returns

I also moderated a panel on Global Opportunity - where are the opportunities and how to capture them. It is clear that certain segments are getting hit hard like Infrastructure and handsets, operators are also cutting back. Consumer data spending is still strong in the North American market as was evident form the strong AT&T and Verizon Q4 numbers. China and India are finally going 3G and some of the biggest contracts will be doled out.

China is pursuing a three technology strategy with China Mobile with TD-SCDMA, China Telecom with CDMA2000, and China Unicom with WCDMA. On the TD-SCDMA, China is trying to attract traditional OEMs to supplement Chinese OEMs but will the big boys invest in a technology that might not too long? To avail international opportunities, one has to understand the local market perfectly before jumping in. Despite the nuclear winter, there are new opportunities surfacing in various parts of the globe.

Next day, the full conference was in full flow with 6 interesting and diverse keynote addresses and panel discussion. Soundbites (courtesy PNWS)

During the session on Mobile Advertising, I presented my thoughts on the state of affairs of the mobile advertising ecosystem

I also wrote a small piece for the PNWS newsletter (below) based on our annual mobile predictions survey.

The best guesses for 2009
It’s that time of year again; time for predictions and forecasts for the year ahead. Chetan Sharma gives you some ideas based on the annual mobile survey conducted by Chetan Sharma Consulting with industry execs. Don’t miss Chetan live at PNWS where he will give you the inside track on mobile advertising and give you some insight on what consumers are thinking.

Despite the tough economy, overall, the mood is still optimistic that the mobile industry might be able to weather the storm a bit better than some of its counterparts.
There is predicted growth in prepaid subscriptions in the North American market.
Acceleration in the declining mode of downloadables already visible over the last few quarters.
The increase in the subscriber base will nullify the loss in data subscriptions, with the caveat that if the job loss rate increases substantially, there might be a flattening of data revenues in Q109 and gradual decline over the course of the year.
Continued growth in 3G and smartphone penetration especially in the western markets
Voice ARPU will continue its downward trend and data ARPU will become a more dominant factor of the overall ARPU mix by the end of 2009.
Wireless data is likely to help in carrying the wireless industry through these tough times; the global percentage contribution from data is likely to exceed 25% by the end of 2009.
OPEN will continue to be the buzzword for 2009 and Google is likely to set the agenda on “open” for others to follow.
While the overall advertising budgets will shrink, mobile advertising ad-spend will keep increasing from the 2008 levels. Targeting capability is increasing and CPMs are coming down making for a more efficient mobile channel for advertising. Brands are falling in 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 comfortable with.
After many years of delay, India and China will finally start investing in 3G deployments with China focusing on TD-SCDMA/WCDMA and India on WCDMA.
Plans for mobile payments will get pulled back a bit due to economic crisis. Limited trials and rollouts will continue in western Europe and North America.
Infrastructure players are amongst the worst hit in the wireless ecosystem. Players like Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent, and others are suffering. Will they continue to exist in their existing form or will a Chinese player see an opportunity to acquire them? Handset market is also seeing resetting of the landscape with the Korean manufacturers rising above Motorola to be counted amongst top three. The biggest infrastructure contracts will come from China and India this year but the majority of the $50B budget will be spent on TD-SCDMA equipment so the opportunity might be limited to local vendors with minor participation from global players.
Tough economic times are also ripe opportunities for M&A. Companies with cash will be able to swoop the struggling players who don’t have runway to survive 2009-10. We are likely to see several transactions and fire-sales.
Finally, though venture money is scarce, bear markets also give birth to new business models, new companies, new darlings of the wall street, and completely new opportunities and value propositions that weren’t envisioned before. Overall, consumer mobile data spending is expected to stay strong through this time economic cycles.
Good Luck and Best wishes.

Thanks to Michael Bidu for inviting me to participate.

Earlier this week, I headed down to Palo Alto to moderate a panel on Location Based Advertising being hosted by the Wireless Communication Alliance LBS SIG at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)

Being involved in the wireless industry for almost 15 years, I used to follow the works of the legendary Mark Weiser, founder of the Ubiquitous Computing (UC) group at PARC and father of Ubiquitous Computing in general. His works and words have inspired many in the industry including me.

In fact, in 1999, when I was picking a name for our wireless practice at Luminant, Ubiquitous Computing was on the top of my list but I found myself explaining it the industry. We gradually changed to Pervasive Computing (which was also chosen by IBM around that time). People still found it hard to grasp the meaning, so I reluctantly changed (IBM also started de-emphasizing PvC) it to “wireless practice.”

Anyway, it was an absolute thrill and an honor to interact with the folks at UC at PARC and moderate a panel at PARC. There is so much computing history at PARC that even the walls seem to whisper UC.

The panelists were

– Brian Levin, Useful Networks
– Ujjal Kolhi, RhythmNewMedia
– Ilan Zorman, AdYouNet
– Blair Swedeen, Placecast
– David Turner, NAVTEQ

presenting different points of view regarding LBA. These guys have been around the block with location and advertising so it was a good spirited discussion. I have great respect for Ujjal (before Rhythm, he used to be CMO of Airtouch responsible for $250M/yr advertising budget), he has good insights into how advertising is bought and sold. Unlike the other panelists, Ujjal wasn’t particularly bullish on the LBA opportunity in terms of size and scale and thought it will be at best a niche play.

David talked about some interesting campaigns they have been launching on portable navigation devices from Garmin. Blair and Ilan talked about the differences with online targeting and how location targeting can improve performance. Brian from Useful Networks (I like the tag line - we take the BS out of LBS, neat!) gave some information about their European trials. Their role as location aggregator is being received well and they will have some numbers to announce next month in Barcelona.

Privacy was a common theme for the panelists, something that has to be done right or else the industry risks the regulatory hammer. We covered quite a bit in a short amount of time, yet there was still so much to discuss.

Thanks to Kurt Partridge for inviting me to help out with the event.

Pacific Northwest Wireless Summit Next week January 12, 2009

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, BRIC, Carriers, European Wireless Market, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Speaking Engagements, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

The PNWS is shaping up to be a great event.

In case, you haven’t registered yet (and are in the pacific northwest area), it will be a good idea. The event starts with a Leadership Summit on Sunday which is an invite only forum for 50 CEOs, presidents, CFOs, CTOs and visionaries from small and large successful wireless companies as well as decision makers from government and academia from Canada, US, UK, China, and other parts of the world. I will be moderating a panel on “Global Opportunities” with

Dr. Wang Jing (Secretary General, TD-SCDMA Forum, China)

Tony Fish (Co-founder, AMF Ventures, UK)

Laurence Dunbar (Partner, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Canada)

There will be a report published on the days proceedings, so will have more to share later on.

Next day, I will participate on the panel on Mobile Advertising and Consumer Insights, presenting mobile advertising trends in 2009 and then going in the roundtable moderated by our friend Michael Bidu, Executive Director of WINBC, the man behind this event. Other panelists will be:

Olivier Vincent, CEO, Canpages (http://www.canpages.ca)

Simon Backer, CEO, Wireless Image (http://www.wireless-image.com)

Gowri Shankar, SVP Sales and Business Development, SinglePoint (http://www.gosinglepoint.com )

Looking forward to an engaging couple of days.

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 , 2 comments

Mobile Industry Predictions 2009

2009 Mobile Industry Predictions Survey

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http://www.chetansharma.com/MobilePredictions2009.htm

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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:

Akio Orii, CFO and VP, Toyota
Declan Carew, New Product Strategy Manager, Vodafone
Helen Keegan, Consultant, Beep Marketing
Rich Begert, CEO, Singlepoint, and
Russ McGuire, VP, Sprint Nextel
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.

Recap of "Tomorrow’s Wireless Future" November 20, 2008

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, Carriers, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Indian Wireless Market, International Trade, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Smart Phones, Speaking Engagements, US Wireless Market, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 3 comments

Tomorrow’s Wireless Future

One of the reasons I love what I do is that I get a chance to work with really smart people around the world on some cutting-edge projects. Additionally, I get the opportunity to interview some of the brightest minds in the industry. This year has been particularly rewarding. I probably did close to 25 events which were a mix of keynote addresses, panel moderation, panel participation, university lectures, and other speeches. Add in the 20+ client project visits and it all translates into more than a trip every other week to the SeaTac airport. My suitcase has been permanently positioned at the doorstep in my house.

Earlier this week, I had the distinct honor of moderating a panel of some of the most eminent senior wireless research scientists and CEOs of wireless companies from Finland where we explored the future of the wireless landscape from user interface to reduction in carbon footprint to privacy and security issues and much more.

Also, had the privilege to do a Q&A session with Dr. Craig Barrett, Chairman of Intel Corporation after his keynote address. This note summarizes the topics discussed during the “Tomorrow’s Wireless World” event.

Many people might not be aware but the City of Oulu in the central part of Finland is a leading epicenter of wireless activities with many major industry players setting up shops for doing R&D work. In fact, it is quite likely that one of the companies out of Oulu has had an impact in some way on the mobile phone you have in your pocket (and we are not including Nokia).

The topic of our panel was “Your Wireless Future” – a broad topic that is always difficult to cover in 60 minutes or less. My illustrious panel included (from R to L):

· Prof. Juha Röning, Head of the Dept. Electrical and Information Engineering, Oulu University. A leading edge research center, many companies in Oulu have been spun out of this department

· Markus Asplund, VP, Sesca Technologies. A major services firm in the mobile industry

· Ari Pouttu, Director of Center of Wireless Communications, University of Oulu. A leading research center in doing work in access technologies.

· David Chartier, CEO, Codenomicon. A major player in the network security space. Their tools are used for hardening their products by companies such as Cisco, Apple, IBM, Nokia, and others.

· Craig O’Connell, Sr. Manager, Elektrobit. Working with pretty much all OEMs around the world

· Dr. Jussi Paakkari, VP, R&D ICT, VTT. Doing some cutting edge research in the area of network protocols, security, access, machine vision systems, and much more

· Purnima Kochikar, Director, Software and Services. Nokia. Well, you know Nokia

I started by asking the panelists about what in their view have been some of the defining trends over the last 12 months. Summary of answers – iPhone; android; move towards full mobile browser; browser will reduce fragmentation and more innovation will happen on this front; with the rise of smartphones, security and privacy have become an issue,

Some other salient points (read issues and opportunities) from the discussion:

· It is forecasted (by WWWRF) that in another 10 years, we will have 1000 radios per every subscriber. That would translate into few trillion nodes around us. The level of complexity and carbon footprint will be enormous. One has to figure out a way to address both.

· City of Oulu has first of a kind experiment with NFC where the technology has been embedded in day-to-day life from home, school, train station, restaurant, probably every object in the city. Pretty interesting experiment that will lead to interesting use cases and technology implementations.

· There are so many protocols being integrated into the device that hackers are targeting not only the data but the protocol weaknesses to gain access. IT finally starting to address smartphone issue in their networks.

· The role of Cognitive radio and SDRs will gain prominence as more access technologies get introduced.

· In a ubiquitous environment with finite spectrum, “sensing” technologies will have a great role in optimization. Sense and do the best for the consumer, the device, and the network. Hyper connectivity will become the norm.

· In addition to touch, gesture and face recognition will add to a better multimodal experience.

· Mobile payments is coming and going to make a big impact. We have to of course sort out the business models.

· 3Cs of mobile – convergence, context, and community (Nokia’s Mantra).

· The very business of R&D has changed significantly with corporations choosing to outsource R&D and the cycle of concept to market launch has shrunk from 6 years or more to 12-18 months.

· More innovation will come from integration of existing technologies rather than some big breakthrough.

· Demand for bandwidth will keep growing.

· Significant opportunities in medicine, enterprise, and other industry verticals.

· In developing countries, while consumers are willing to pay for expensive devices, they don’t have any appetite for expensive service plans.

Some discussion points from Craig’s speech and our Q&A session:

· World will go to free MIPS and free baud (computing and communications). What happens then?

· Moore’s law is good for another 15 years based on 5 generation of future chipsets that they have in the labs. And it will probably keep going after that.

· Awareness of context really important.

· Many types of devices will proliferate including MIDs, education devices, some designed specifically for special purpose (medical monitors) and geographies (emerging markets).

· Global challenges are education, health, computing, and communication.

· In the developed world, wireless technology can help reduce the cost which is increasing at the rate of $200B/year and in the developing world, technology can help provide access to health care.

· Convenience and access trumps security concerns.

· Areas of opportunities – Telemedicine, education, economic development, governance, energy and environment.

· This is Craig’s 11^th recession. Principle to tackle has been the same every time. You cannot save your way out of recession. You can only innovate out of a recession. Intel R&D budgets will remain the same.

· Innovation is key to surviving and competing in the global economy, now more so than ever.

· The fact that so much can be done in these tiny piece of electronics is just amazing and the drive to do better and more using technology keeps him going, keeps him inspired.

Craig is passionate about education and innovation and he serves on more global committees than he would care to admit. His work outside of Intel has been equally impactful.

It should be noted that the Matti Pennanen, Mayor of Oulu who also graced the event with his presence is a technologist at heart and understands the role of innovation in the growth and strengthening of their economy. How many tech-savvy Mayors do we have in other countries? I thought so. I have noticed similar trends in Korea, Ireland, and Israel. They all have something in common – great early education system and maniacal focus on innovation and desire to succeed. It was great chatting with Mayor Matti about technology trends and opportunities. In this global economy, politicians better become tech-savvy really fast or they won’t be serving their constituents well. Cities, states, and countries need to start thinking like startups and compete for every dollar.

My thanks to my friends Victor Vurpillat and Brenda Fox at Global Connexus and Pauliina Pikkujämsä at Oulu Innovation for inviting me to participate in the discussion.

Image Courtesy: Global Connexus

US Wireless Data Market Update - Q3 2008 November 16, 2008

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, Carriers, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, Microsoft Mobile, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Usability, Speaking Engagements, US Wireless Market, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so far

US Wireless Market Q3 2008 Update Nov 2008 Chetan Sharma Consulting

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Recession: Nice to meet you.

US_Wireless_Data_Market: I don’t know who you are but I won’t mind a bailout package.

The US wireless data market shrugged off the economic doldrums in Q3 2008 and grew 7.3% Q/Q and 37.5% from Q307 to reach $8.8B in data services revenues. The total for the year (for first 9 months) stands at $24.5B which is equal to the revenues generated in 2007 (full year). While the flailing economy has started to hit hard on the wireless data ecosystem esp. the infrastructure and handsets segments, consumers haven’t really pulled back on mobile data spending, just yet.

But will they? That is a $700B question. It is likely that more people will be willing to downgrade their Internet services, wireline usage, cable premium channels, restaurant eating frequency, energy consumption, vacation trips, and the gas mileage every week than reduce their wireless usage. But what about data services - broadly, they are divided into messaging, web and information access (includes data cards and subscriptions) and downloadables (games, ringtones, etc.). It is highly unlikely that people will change their messaging (which now accounts for approximately 40% of the revenues) habits overnight though we might see more subs going for package deals and family plans to save. We might also see growth in prepaid subscriptions in the US market. In fact, Q3 saw a jump in messaging volumes in the US by 38% and messaging revenues grew 6%.

Wireless WAN data card access is very useful for road warriors though some corporations might start limiting the number of employees using such services, we don’t think it will make substantial impact in most cases except for the fact that the layoffs in various sectors will start to ripple into the mobile sector and will start cutting into some of the enterprise mobile data revenues. The downloadables have already been in the declining mode for the last 9 quarters and we might see acceleration of that trend.

Next question is - will the increase in the subscriber base nullify the loss in data subscriptions and the answer seems to be - likely yes. But, if the job loss rate increases substantially, more than it has been in Q3 and into Q4, we might, just might, start to see flattening of data revenues in Q109 and gradual decline over the course of the year. Despite the unprecedented bailout from the US Treasury to abort a long recession, we are likely to be in for a longer winter than most anticipate because current efforts don’t even start to address the fundamentals of the financial crisis. The basic industry structure is still flawed. Unless the new administration strikes at the root cause of this mess, wireless data segment won’t be completely immune to the wider economic crisis. We have already started to see infrastructure (operators are slowing down 3G/4G investment) and device segments (replacement cycles are getting longer) getting hit pretty hard.

Another factor at play is the growth in 3G and smartphone penetration in the US market, both of which have been responsible for increasing the usage and hence the revenues. At the end of Q308, 3G penetration was approximately 37% and the data penetration had reached 56%. Smartphone penetration has been inching up as well. In fact, all the service providers and OEMs have been targeting sub-$200 price point, which seems to be a good sweet spot for consumer adoption. The above two factors will also help negate any cancellations or downgrading of data plans.

However, we are likely to see price pressure on subscription plans and as a result, voice ARPU will continue its downward trend and data ARPU will become a more dominant factor of the overall ARPU mix by the end of 2009. The percentage contribution from data is likely to exceed 25% by the end of 2008 and 30% by the end of 2009.

Operators in Europe have already started to feel the pinch starting with Vodafone and Telefonica who experienced decline in revenues (due to the decline in MOU and price pressure) some of which is a function of the heavy prepaid penetration. But, it should be noted that for Vodafone, though overall service revenues declined 1.7%, data revenues grew 30%. As we have been saying for years, data-mindset is needed for strategy, infrastructure design and investment to stay competitive in the changing landscape. Better offer packaging and lower price plans will also help in reducing service churn. Operators will also look to reduce their opex to boost profits.

Coming back to the 2008 forecasts, we still think that the US wireless data market is likely to come close to hitting our original estimate of $34B for the year given the seasonality of Q4 which is likely to negate any decline experienced by the industry. So, it might not be until Q109 before we know where the various data sub-segment are trending. If consumer confidence starts to reverse its trend in early 2009, we are likely to see slower growth but the data revenues will continue to grow from the current levels. However, the lack of policies or correction will further downgrade consumer sentiment, then, we might start to see decline in the US wireless data market for the first time probably starting around late Q209.

Against this backdrop, the analysis of the Q308 US wireless data market is:

The US Wireless data service revenues grew 7.3% Q/Q to $8.8B in Q208. Compared to Q307, the data service revenues grew 37.5%.
Overall ARPU decreased by $0.04. Average voice ARPU declined by $0.94 while average data ARPU grew by $0.90 or 8% almost negating the drop in voice ARPU.
Sprint led in data ARPU with $13.50 (or 24.11% of the revenues, followed by Verizon at $13.30 (or 25.49% of the revenues - first carrier to cross the 25% threshold),~~Verizon led in data ARPU with $13.58 (or 26.03% of the revenues - first carrier to cross the 25% threshold) closely followed by Sprint at $13.50 (or 24.11%),~~ AT&T at $12.29 (or 24.20%) and T-Mobile at $9 (or 18%).
All the top four carriers experienced approximately 8% increase in data revenues compared to the Q208 levels. Verizon with $2.8B in data revenues led AT&T at $2.7B, Sprint at $1.6B and T-Mobile at $850M. Both AT&T and Verizon are on target to be two of the three operators to exceed $10B in data revenues for the year for the first time by (global) operators besides NTT DoCoMo (the two US carriers are already over 75% of the target). China Mobile is the other operator which is going to cross the $10B mark in 2008.
AT&T and Verizon now account for 62% of the market data services revenues. Sprint had a second consecutive quarter of data revenue growth after falling behind its peers for the past couple of years.
The average industry percentage contribution of data to service revenues exceeded 23%. A year ago, the percentage contribution stood at approximately 17.7%. US market is likely to exceed the 25% mark in Q408.
The number of data subscribers has been on the rise with Verizon leading the way. At the end of Q308, Verizon had 74% of its subscribers using some form of data services. The messaging volumes in the US market now average over 105B messages/month or at the frequency of a message/sub every 2 hours. In comparison users in Philippines average routinely send on an average, a message every hour.
In terms of net-adds, Verizon continued to lead in Q308 with 2.1M net-adds (aided by an acquisition), again edging AT&T which had 2M net-adds for the quarter. Sprint continues to lose subscribers at an alarming rate, loosing another 1.3M in Q308.
T-Mobile USA moved to number 9 in the top 10 rankings of global mobile operators by data revenues. For the quarter, Verizon and AT&T improved their rankings to #3 and #4 respectively at the expense of KDDI which dropped to #5. Sprint Nextel maintained its # 6 spot. 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 take firm roots in 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). All the major carriers seem to be offering flat-fee access plans for most of the new smartphones being introduced in the market. Approximately 13% of the consumers have flat-rate data plans.
As expected, the blockbuster acquisition of Alltel by Verizon got approved and the deal will close in the next few weeks making Verizon the top carrier in the US market with close to 85M subs by the end of year.
Q3 also saw the launch of the fabled G-phone as G1 Google phone launched by T-Mobile in the US market and it is slowly making its way into Europe. While G1 is no iPhone, it introduced long-awaited features such as multiple processes, more open APIs, and others. Motorola is said to be planning to launch Android devices in 2009. The smartphone segment has clearly shaken up the market with Apple, Google, RIM, and Nokia being the main competitors. Microsoft keeps misreading the market and is heavily under leveraging its strength and experience.
There are probably 18-20 sub-segments within mobile data services and consolidation looms. Who will be the last man standing post the nuclear winter? While the valuations are still high for rapid consolidation, we think that by Q209, the M&A scene is likely to heat up.
Will Mobile Advertising be the rising star from the crisis or one of its victims? Clearly, there are a number of advertisers and brands that are scaling back on the experimental dollars thus shrinking the mobile ad spend. On the other hand there are some savvy brands who are pulling back from the traditional mediums like print which don’t really work and putting more money into digital including mobile. It will be interesting to see if operators use the opportunity to lay the foundations of a long-term mobile advertising strategy. Stay tuned for some of our thoughts on the subject.
Venture money in the mobile sector experienced a rapid decline. Compared to Q307, venture financing declined by 88%, and the yearly totals are 35% lower than what they were a year ago. (Source: Rutberg)
Nokia eclipsed 100M unit sale in Q308 for the sixth straight quarter. It sold over 111.7M handsets in the quarter, more than the next three players combined. Nokia’s global market share declined to 37%. Samsung surged to 52M handset sale. Apple surpassed RIM in smartphone sales. For the year, the industry looks to again eclipse the 1 billion handset mark for 2008 but the overall handset sales will decline in 2009 (though still easily exceeding 1B).
The 3G penetration in the US went past 35% in Q308, with Verizon leading the pack with over 61% 3G subscriber penetration compared to the 30% 3G subscriber penetration at AT&T. T-Mobile is slowly expanding its 3G coverage. 3G subs have over $23 in data ARPU. The growth in 3G and smartphones is helping offset any downward pressure on the data revenues and overall ARPU.
As we had mentioned back in July, Apple easily surpassed its 10M target in Q308 buoyed by its 100 country expansion plan. The broadband and appstore capabilities are quite attractive to consumers and it shows. VPN and direct access to Exchange is helping in getting many more users into the mix and making IT folks less apprehensive. The clearcut business model of 30/70 split is also attractive.
T-Mobile also launched its own Appstore (and so did Google and RIM, even Microsoft) along the lines of Apple’s initiative with promises of greater control to the application developers.
The growth in smartphone usage is also putting pressure on the networks which are not able to handle the load during peak times in certain cities thus forcing carriers to look for alternate strategies to satisfy the demand for broadband - metered billing, UMA, Femtocells, Hotspot buys, WiMAX, LTE, and others. We deal with the whole topic of Wireless Broadband in great detail in our recently released book “Wireless Broadband - Conflict and Convergence” (Co-authored with one of the leading entrepreneurs in the space - Vern Fotheringham, published by IEEE Press and John Wiley). We will have more to say on the subject in the coming days and months.
After raising $14.5B from friends and family, Clearwire’s net-adds continued to drop in Q308. While the deal got approved, the economic climate is putting pressure on a comprehensive rollout strategy. Sprint did launch WiMAX in the Baltimore market with initial feedback from the sparse usage to be as advertised.
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. Don’t be surprised by some acquisitions in 2009.

Global update

China and India added approximately 52M subscriptions combined in Q308 with India edging out China. In Sept, India added more than 10M monthly subscriptions for the second time this year and its net-adds total for the first 9 months stands at 82M. By comparison China added 77M and US increased its tally by 11M.
NTT DoCoMo continues to dominate the wireless data revenues rankings with almost $3.9B in data services revenue in Q308, thus exceeding the $10B mark in just 9 months. Almost 41% of its revenue now comes from data services. DoCoMo also crossed 86% in 3G penetration in Q308 and is expected to cross the 90% mark by early 2009.
Most of the major carriers around the world have double digit percentage contribution to their overall ARPU from data services. Many operators are consistently exceeding 30% with DoCoMo and Softbank being over 40%.

We will be keeping a close eye on the trends in the wireless data sector in our blog and future research reports. The next US Wireless Data Market update and the Global Wireless Data Market update will be issued in March 2009. We will be doing an end of the year piece with forecasts and predictions for the coming year in Dec 2008.

Your feedback is always welcome.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Holidays.

Thanks.

Chetan Sharma

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

Recap of the Vienna Summit November 11, 2008

Posted by chetan in : 3G, AORTA, ARPU, Carriers, European Wireless Market, Indian Wireless Market, Location Based Services, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Speaking Engagements, US Wireless Market, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

For the past 2 months, I have been on the road every week, from a day trip to San Francisco to distant but beautiful Vienna (and an extra day in Paris courtesy of Air France mess). Finally getting some break from the hectic travel schedule .

I was invited to give a keynote address in Vienna on Mobile Advertising - the current state of affairs and where it is heading. Over the course of this year, I must have given 20+ talks on the subject and every couple of months I find myself updating stats and case studies as things are changing so fast. Also, have been working several players in the ecosystem to help them with the strategy and positioning in the mobile advertising ecosystem. Working with agencies, brands, carriers, startups, platform providers, OEMs, and VCs gives me a complete 360 view of this evolving space.

My talk looked at the trends in Western Europe, Japan, and North America, compared what’s working and what’s not. Then I got into the key elements that make MA tick - Reach, Engagement, Targeting, Viral, and Transactions; discussed a bunch of case studies; and finally, put forth the expected trajectory for the next 3-4 years.

The event also had presentations (many of them operators) from all over - UK, Turkey, Albania, Ukraine, Belarus, Israel, Germany, and Indonesia. For me the most interesting one was by Evrim Dirik of Turkcell, Turkey. He discussed the ringback tone mobile advertising platform - Tonla Kazan. It is an ingenious use of a simple functionality of ringback to great effect. The effective CPM (or cost per listen - CPL as he put it) is $100. That should raise some eyebrows. Users get tremendous value, advertisers get stickiness, carrier gets revenue ($10K minimum per campaign), and everyone is happy. Turkcell has also done some innovative work in direct marketing and advertising and their revenues from this segment are reaching $38M. Not many operators around the world can claim that.

It was great to meet new colleagues and share ideas and war stories. Didn’t get much time to see around (and it was getting dark around 4:30pm) except a quick run to the Schonbrunn Palace (famous as Mozart’s training ground). A missed connection courtesy of Austrian Airlines and Air France provided the opportunity to spend an evening in Paris. If you are going to get stuck somewhere in Europe, Paris is a good choice. Hey! I even found free WiFi at the hotel (IBIS at the airport, elsewhere, it was a rip-off with $20+/day rates).

Back to the missed connection story - sometimes I feel that airlines compete for hiring the dumbest people around, these guys are so incompetent that it should be criminal. Charles De Gaulle - the Parisian airport is going through some construction, as such getting from one terminal to another - specially on across the pond flights can become a task. People flying on Air France to North America were missing connections left and right and these guys have to provide hotel and food. And then the industry complains about falling profits.

Anyway, barring the airline doldrums, quite a productive trip, learned some new things, got some new ideas, and made new friends.

Next week, I have a short one coming up - a 2 hr hop to San Jose to moderate a great panel of executives from the Finnish wireless industry on the topic of “Future of Wireless.” Really looking forward to it. Hope to see some of you down there.

On to Vienna October 23, 2008

Posted by chetan in : Mobile Advertising, Speaking Engagements, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

Comverse is hosting a two day event in Vienna next week. Many of the European operators will be there so am really looking forward to it. My keynote presentation will cover key factors for making Mobile Advertising successful. Turkey has a unique business model for Mobile Advertising so looking forward to the Turkcell presentation and many others ..

Keynote Presentation: Introduction to Mobile Advertising

Chetan Sharma, author of Mobile Advertising: Supercharge Your Brand in the Exploding Wireless Market

There is plenty of buzz around mobile advertising. Despite the excitement, there are significant obstacles to overcome before the medium can be truly meaningful. How do you take the next step in transforming the buzz into real, long-term sustainable business? What’s unique about the mobile and what’s the best way to leverage its strength? What are the key success parameters? What have some of the leading success stories been? How do operators plan to exploit this new medium? Where is the industry headed and what’s the future of mobile advertising? We address these and other questions in this presentation.

If any of the readers are also attending, would love to meet.

2nd Pacific NW conf on Mobile October 20, 2008

Posted by chetan in : Mobile Advertising, Speaking Engagements, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

The 2nd pacific NW conf on mobile was held in Seattle today. It had a good and focused audience including our friends from Vancouver who came down for the event. The event has grown well from last year (i gave the keynote address last year)

Tom Huseby, a well-known VC in the area gave the keynote and gave quite an upbeat assessment of the mobile industry in stark contrast to the death and gloom sentiment of Sequoia.

I participated on the Mobile Advertising panel moderated by Gary Roshak, former VP of Advertising at Yahoo! Other panelists included my co-author and friend Victor Melfi, SVP Voicebox, Ivan Braiker, CEO of HipCricket, Ken Wilner, CEO of Zumobi, and Barry Chu, GM of Advertising at Medio Systems. As always time is short to discuss the complexity of the mobile advertising opportunity but we covered quite a bit of ground. Tricia of Moconews did a good job of capturing the details.

On the infancy of mobile advertising: Chetan Sharma, president of Chetan Sharma Consulting, said mobile advertising this year will be a $700 to 800 million industry, and today, 20 percent of that goes to carriers. When compared to the other advertising mediums, such as TV, radio and print, mobile makes up a tiny percentage at .4 percent. Even in Japan, which can be considered the most advanced mobile advertising market, it’s about 1 percent. But with the uncertainty in the economy, advertisers will be reducing their budgets in radio and print, and focusing on the Internet and mobile. He said there’s two camps: some advertisers will stick with what they know, but others will make the determination that print and radio won’t work, and although mobile is new and more difficult to understand, they’ll be drawn to it by the promise of better ROIs. Last year mobile advertising revenues doubled, and it probably will again this year, with revenues estimated to hit $1.5 billion in the U.S.

– On types of mobile advertising: Sharma said 50 percent of mobile advertising is coming from SMS, which is more like mobile marketing than it is mobile advertising. After SMS, 25 percent comes to display and 10 percent to mobile search. The remainder is going to mobile TV, audio and couponing in US, “and that will stay the same for the next 4 to 5 years.”

Minor clarification, I think for the next 4-5 years, the channels of SMS/Display/Search will continue to dominate amongst all the channels available. Their internal share will of course change each year.

David Adams, Brian Esler, and David Rice did a good job of putting the conference together and they are already planning the 2009 event. Thanks Zumobi for sponsoring the event and helping the local community. Seattle - the epicenter of mobile in Americas should do host such events more and often.

Next, I am starting to prepare for my keynote in Vienna next week. I have the luxury of 90 minutes to go deep into the subject.

Global Wireless Data Market Update - 1H 2008 September 28, 2008

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, BRIC, Carriers, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Gaming, IP Strategy, Indian Wireless Market, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, MVNO, Messaging, 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, Smart Phones, Speaking Engagements, US Wireless Market, Unified Messaging, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so far

Global Wireless Data Market 1h 2008 Update Sept 2008 Chetan Sharma Consulting

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http://www.chetansharma.com/globalmarketupdate1H08.htm

Global Wireless Markets continued to grow rapidly especially in India and China where the carriers are adding over 9M new subscriptions every month. India crossed the 300M subscription mark in Aug while China whizzed past 600M in September. Overall, the global subscriptions penetration edged past 50%. During the 1H 2008, revenues further tilted towards data services. The overall global mobile revenues (including equipment) for the year are likely to reach the 1 Trillion dollar landmark later this year (enough to bailout an economy or two), with approximately $800 billion attributed to service revenues. Data revenues now account for almost 20% of the global service revenues.

For some leading operators, data is now contributing close to 40% of the revenues however increase in data ARPU is not completely offsetting the drop in voice ARPU for most operators. From the true and tested SMS messaging to the new services such as Mobile Advertising, Social Networking, Commerce, Mobile Wallet, and others, different services helped in adding billions to the revenues generated for 1H 2008. Japan remains the envy of the global markets and the nation to study and learn from w.r.t. new services and applications. The US market expanded its lead over Japan in mobile data service revenues for the year and is unlikely to cede ground in the months to come.

Buoyed by the global launch of iPhone, Apple is likely to eclipse the 10M goal in Q308. Its App-Store launch along with Android’s imminent arrival dominated the news. Other manufacturers also introduced challengers to iPhone, most notably, Instinct by Samsung on the Sprint network which has also been quite successful in getting users to engage in data services.

WiMAX vs. LTE debate took over the EV-DO vs. WCDMA chatter and while majority of the industry is consolidating around LTE; open-platform advocates are watching the arrival of WiMAX in the US with great interest. Google, Sprint, Motorola, TWC, Comcast and others put new life into the experiment called Clearwire.

This note summarizes the findings from the research with added insights from our work in various global markets.

The global mobile markets continue to grow at an explosive pace reaching 3.6B subscriptions by 1H08 up 9% from EOY 2007 levels and will likely cross the 4B mark by the end of 2008. Significant growth is coming from India and China with both countries registering on an average 9M net adds per month. India and China combined to add approximately 107M new subscriptions during the first six months of 2008. Overall, the world market is now over the 50% penetration mark.
US edged past Japan again as the most valuable mobile data market in service revenue with US adding $15.7B vs. $13.6B for Japan in 1H08 mobile data service revenues. China with $7.8B was ranked number 3. US registered the highest growth amongst the top 3 with over 18% increase from EOY 2007 levels followed by China at 9% and Japan at 7%. These top 3 markets account for just under 50% of the mobile global data service revenues.
NTT DoCoMo continues to dominate the wireless data service revenue rankings with over $6.8B in service data revenues for 1H08; however, Q/Q growth is declining. DoCoMo crossed 84% 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, China Unicom, Softbank, O2 UK, and T-Mobile USA to round up the top 10 operators by wireless data service revenues. It marks the first time, T-Mobile USA enters the top 10 list as it went past SK Telecom. All the top 10 carriers exceeded $1.5B in data revenues for the first half of 2008.
For the last couple of years, NTT DoCoMo has been the only carrier exceeding $10B in yearly mobile data revenues. In 2008, it is likely to be joined by China Mobile, KDDI, Verizon Wireless, and ATT in the exclusive 10B club.
Data revenues for the top 10 operators increased 10.3% from EOY 2007 and now account for almost 50% of the global mobile data revenues though their subscriber share is around 30%.
Most of the major operators around the world have double digit percentage contribution to their overall ARPU from data services. Operators like KDDI, DoCoMo, and Softbank are approaching 40%. 3 UK, O2 UK, Singtel, and 3 Sweden exceeded 30%.
In March, India edged past the US to become the number two wireless market (by subscriptions) in the world. In last two years alone it has added almost 175M new subscriptions (in comparison China added 169M and the US market added 39M).
ATT reported the highest increase in data ARPU from 2Q07 with 32% growth. Other notable percentage increases in ARPU were from KDDI, DoCoMo, Softbank Japan, 3 Australia, Vodafone Italy, Rogers, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile Austria. The biggest drop in percentage terms were registered by the Indian operators with average data ARPU dropping to $0.65.
In terms of absolute dollar amount, NTT DoCoMo and 3 UK lead the pack with $22 data ARPU. Operators who reported overall ARPU above $60 were 3 UK, Singtel, Rogers, and 3 Sweden.
The biggest jump in data revenues was experienced by the US carriers, the top 3 being ATT, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile USA respectively. SK Telecom, Sprint and O2 UK experienced declines. (For a complete US Market Update, please see our Q208 research note).
In 1H 2008, SMS’s 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%.
NTT DoCoMo regained its position vis-à-vis KDDI w.r.t. mobile data revenues. Their data coordinates stand at ($22, 39.5%) and ($20.3, 37%) respectively (please see slide 10 for reference).
Most of the operators in developed nations are contemplating future strategies to boost data revenues such that decline in voice revenues is at least compensated for. There are very few operators who have experienced increase in overall ARPUs. Comparing the ARPU for last 2 years, amongst the top operators, only Singtel, Rogers, T-Mobile UK, O2 Germany, O2 UK, Verizon Wireless and ATT experienced increase in both overall and data ARPU.
NTT DoCoMo has been at the cutting edge of the mobile data evolution by creating new markets and exploring new technologies and social experiments ahead of almost anybody else in the market. We looked at the data revenue growth at NTT DoCoMo since the introduction of i-Mode almost 10 years ago (see slide on page 17). During the last 9 years, overall ARPU has declined 33% though data ARPU increased over 1800% and now accounts for almost 40% of DoCoMo’s service revenues. The voice ARPU has declined almost 60%. Our long history with the Japanese and Korean markets has taught us that while the individual strategies in each market will differ, one should study the trends and technologies in these markets to get a sense of what’s coming.
The biggest percentage contribution by data ARPU has been consistently registered (since mid 2002) by two Philippines carriers – Smart Communications and Globe Telecom with over 66% (or $3) contribution coming from the data services. Philippines is also one of the most active messaging nations where users average a message/hr round the clock.
Even though China reported approximately $7.8B in data revenues for 1H08 and the percentage contribution is over 27%, data ARPU is around $2.3. For India, data ARPU continues to stay below $1 for all major carriers with Reliance experiencing a 50c data ARPU during Q208.
China Mobile with 428M (as of Aug 08) remains the #1 carrier in terms of total number of subscrptions followed by Vodafone at 269M and China Unicom with 171M subscriptions. Telefonica, América Móvil, 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 (Verizon will overtake ATT after its Alltel acquisition goes through later this year). 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 remains the most valuable telecom operator with over $200B in market cap. It is followed by Vodafone at around $125B. 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, there were over 350M 3G users (69% of them are WCDMA users vs. EV-DO). Both Japan and Korea continue to expand their 3G base with both reporting over 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 at approx. 30% 3G penetration (Italy being the exception exceeding 40%).
China and India represent the biggest opportunities for the Infrastructure providers. China postponed its 3G decision again and couldn’t launch a network for the otherwise wildly successful 2008 Olympics. India is also going through its 3G spectrum policy and is likely to resolve some of the contentious issues shortly. Some of the biggest infrastructure contracts will come from these two countries that are looking to expand coverage into rural areas.
Carriers with nationwide 3G networks and good distribution of handsets are seeing strong 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) is also gaining momentum. Networks are getting deployed and market is being seeded with some of the early handsets. For 4G, there is a strong momentum behind LTE, proponents of WiMAX are pushing the technology as a 4G candidate, and though it is starting to lose its time advantage, all eyes are on the imminent Clearwire launch.
In terms of applications, messaging accounts for the 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 also captured industry’s imagination. Alternate devices with wholesale cellular agreements are also flooding the market. In Japan, Mobile Commerce is expected to do much better than the other hot category - Mobile Advertising. 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.
1H 2008 saw the demise of the last standing next-generation MVNO in the US market - Helio, which got sold to Virgin Mobile at bargain basement prices. In Europe, Blyk continues to make good progress with its unique mobile advertising-based model. Asian market is also opening up for MVNOs.
Nokia eclipsed 100M/quarter unit sale in both the quarters thus far. It has sold over 237M handsets in 2008, more than the next three handset manufacturers 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.
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 Verizon’s “Open Network” initiative elevated the consternation in the ecosystem. Apple launched its 3G iPhone while Android’s first device is slated to see the light of day next month courtesy of T-Mobile USA.
Apple launched its App-Store with iPhone 3G which has been quite successful though there is significant clutter to muddle through. The company is likely to announce soon that it eclipsed its 10M goal in Q308, a full quarter earlier than the stated target. These days, any new device that gets launched in the market is looked through the prism of iPhone.
In the last 10 years, the growth patterns in the mobile industry have completely reversed. In 1998, the developed world accounted for 76% of the subscriber base, in 2008; the percentages have flipped with developing world now accounting for 76% of the subscriber base and are likely to increase to 85% by 2018 (see slide 8). For a more detailed analysis, check out our research paper sponsored by The United Nations Foundation on “Mobile Services Evolution: 2008-2018.” It was presented at The Rockefeller Foundation Healthcare summit in Bellagio, Italy in July 08. (Note: The dichotomy between developed and developing nations is a very simplified concept that has been around for about 50 years. It is clear that a transformation in the distribution of wealth worldwide will change the picture in the next 10 years. Countries that are considered developing in today’s definition will become economic superpowers in 10 years and more dominant than some of the developed nations, even if they have not caught up then with some in terms of GDP per capita. However, for purely the purposes of comparison and illustration, we are using the existing definitions to discuss the shift in the mobile 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 and Google are getting active in the space as well. 2007 saw tremendous M&A activity in both the online and mobile advertising space and while it slowed down during 2008, it is likely to pick-up again in 2009 as consolidation looms.
Wireless Broadband continues to be a significant growth driver for the industry. We partnered with our good friend Vern Fotheringham - a true industry entrepreneur and who has been behind many of the industry firsts, to write an exhaustive treatment of the subject in our upcoming book - Wireless Broadband: Conflict and Convergence being jointly published by IEEE Press and John Wiley (see below). Details forthcoming.

Your feedback is always welcome.

Thanks.

Chetan Sharma

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

Carnival of the Mobilists #141 September 15, 2008

Posted by chetan in : AORTA, CTIA, Carriers, European Wireless Market, Location Based Services, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, US Wireless Market, Worldwide Wireless Market , 2 comments

Welcome back to Always On Real-Time Access or AORTA. Last week, folks in the industry were busy with several events including CTIA, TC50, DEMO, Mobile Web Strategies, and many others. Here are the gems from the week.

Anthony Hand at Hand Interactive educates us about the screen capture techniques on various phones. Quite Handy.

James Cooper at MJelly opines on “Why South Africa is leading the mobile Internet revolution” Good insights, data, and case studies.

Tsahi Levent-Levi at VoIP Survivor posts an interview with a TD-SCDMA chipset vendor and their launch in the Chinese market during the Olympic games.

Martin Sauter at Mobile Society and author of Communications Systems for Mobile questions the use of Narrow band codecs for SIP to SIP calls.

John Boxall at Handi Mobility writes about Python S60 Bluetooth Console on Mac OSX using pictures.

Igor Faletski at Mobscure discusses some guidelines for supplying context indicators in mobile applications.

Ram Krishnan at Mobile Broadband Blog discusses mobile broadband pricing.

Carlos Enrique Ortiz points that “one click” interactions are necessary for barcodes and NFC to take off. He also has pictures from MobileWidget Camp in Austin.

Andrew Grill of London Calling talks about the Blogloc service that enables users to post their location.

My contribution to the carnival - CTIA IT and Entertainment 2008 roundup.

Finally, my vote for the best post of the week goes to Ajit Jaokar at Open Gardens who discusses cloud computing in “Cloud or Fog? The battle for supremacy in the cloud is not a dogfight but will be fought in the trenches.“

Next week, hop over to Next Generation Mobile Content hosted by Ofir Leitner for #142 COM. Until then, happy reading.

CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment 2008 Roundup September 12, 2008

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, BRIC, CTIA, Carriers, Enterprise Mobility, European Wireless Market, Indian Wireless Market, Japan Wireless Market, Location Based Services, M&A, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Gaming, Mobile Search, Mobile Usability, Privacy, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so far

CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment 2008 Roundup

http://www.chetansharma.com/ctiawirelessit2008.htm

CTIA in pictures

San Francisco hosted the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment 2008 show earlier this week. In addition, there were some pre-show events like Billboard’s Mobile Entertainment Live and Mobile Web Strategies. This note summarizes our impressions from the week.

First, Let’s do the numbers CTIA released its mid-year survey results. Bob Roche and John-Paul Edgette at CTIA do a great service to the industry by compiling 6-month of useful data and making it available at each CTIA. In Summary - 262.7M subs, $14.78B in data revenues accounting for 20.3% service revenues, 75B TXT messages/month. We released our US Mobile Data Update for Q208 last month, Global Update coming later this month.

Overall Impression – This year’s show was one of the dullest in recent memory, devoid of any buzz, energy, or announcements. Maybe it was due to the 50,000 other events happening the same week (many in San Francisco). Or maybe, Bernanke’s congressional testimony is playing out in the wireless industry. Or maybe it is just conference-fatigue.

My week started early as I had the honor of giving a keynote address to a group of influential executives at major international operators and agencies worldwide at a well-organized private event. The topic was “US Mobile Advertising: Today and Tomorrow.” We delved into what’s working and what’s not and what will it take to get the industry to the next level, which players are likely to succeed and why?

Next day, I split my time between Mobile Entertainment Live organized by BillBoard and Mobile Web Strategies chaired by our friend Ajit Jaokar. While most of it was rehash of previous events, presentation by Jouko Ahvenainen of Xtract was probably the standout for me where he talked in detail about the importance of “analytics” and “intelligence” in advertising and social media. One of the interesting announcements/discussion was from Nokia regarding “Comes w/ Music” to be launched in UK next month - music subscription is bundled with the device as long as the device is from Nokia. Reliance Entertainment also announced its aggressive push into the US market.

Trip down the memory lane US Wireless Industry is celebrating 25 years of existence. Steve Largent invited Craig McCaw and John Stanton to reminiscence about the good old days - $4000 phones, hundreds of dollars of monthly bills, no roaming, 30 min talk time, obligatory 100 lbs bricksters. Craig emphasized on innovation while Stanton accurately put his finger on the big picture – US operators aren’t thinking like global companies or the media companies and can’t succeed in the new economy over the long haul. Spot On, John.

My first job was with a company that wrote the billing software for McCaw Communications in the early nineties (at that time, I was writing code for fraud prevention using RF fingerprinting for GTE, Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, Nynex, Airtouch, and the likes .. those were the days)

Open is in the Air With each CTIA over the last 18 months, carriers’ embrace of “Openness” is getting tighter and more nuanced. It is amazing how competitive threat can help disrupt the status-quo. While the keynote session sounded very scripted, each of the 3 CEOs from T-Mobile (Dotson), Sprint Nextel (Hesse), and Verizon (Lowell) are putting in place their “Open” Strategy (the current no. 1 operator was MIA). T-Mobile is launching an Apple-like App-Store next week with 50-50% rev-share which goes up to 30-70% in favor of the app developer but advertising is allowed (unlike iPhone Appstore). Streaming is also not allowed. Tricia at Moconews has more details. The balance between open network, customer care cost, and application performance can be a tricky one and everyone is tiptoeing the boiling waters carefully.

My favorite quips:

Hesse – “We have opened the network, Knock yourself out”

Lowell – “Our definition of open is irrelevant, it is what the customer wants”

Dotson – “Walled garden is a thing of the past”

It should be noted that two of the biggest success stories in the industry - iPhone and Blackberry are closed systems. Everything boils down to user-experience and value. We shouldn’t lose sight of that in the Open debate.

Yahoo’s oneConnect Marco Boerries, EVP, Yahoo! (read the piece he wrote for our Mobile Advertising book here) gave a keynote second CTIA running. These guys aren’t distracted by the Microsoft acquisition drama and remain the bright spot in an otherwise flailing organization. Over the past few months, they keep on refining their distribution and monetization strategy but they do need to attract droves of developers to make the initiative successful. Marco announced the launch of “Blueprint” – a framework for building mobile Internet apps and services. The trick is of course to attract developers. AOL is also pursuing a similar strategy.

Mobile Advertising There was a lot of discussion around mobile advertising each day with some new players emerging. Companies like Hipcricket (and many many others) are making real progress but I get a sense of “being stuck” from some of the players. Maybe, it is a function of the economy, or perhaps – fragmentation, lack of education, metrics, is keeping the industry from opening up.

CTIA released a whitepaper on 2D bar code scanning. Good to see some progress but the big question is – who takes the initiative to spend marketing dollars to educate the consumers and to make 2D bar codes pervasive in the US.

Carriers are getting more active in pursuing their mobile advertising strategies but I still see some fundamental missteps. Keep an eye on some of the work we will release later in the year to help guide the discussion, hopefully, in the right direction.

Mobile Social Networking Lot of discussion around mobile social networking (infact too much at times, even the mobile email player Visto considers itself a social networking company now), mobile only social networking, monetization challenges and opportunities. Most of the players are just aggressively focused on building an audience as quickly as possible. The monetization strategies include advertising, value added services, app store. Verizon and ATT announced their social networking strategies (built on the back of Intercasting’s platform) which essentially focus on social networking aggregation. This keeps them pretty safe and relevant. Current monetization model is that of subscription and maybe advertising down the road. For mobile only players the models varies from advertising heavy (Mocospace) to VAS heavy (mig33).

M2M The percentage of M2M companies in the mix increased compared to last time. For the first time I saw, carrier booths in M2M pavilion which was quite interesting. They clearly see this is a growing segment.

Smartphone Mania Devices like iPhone and Instinct are accounting for a disproportionately high share of the mobile download business now. And if data services is the only growth engine, why worry about launching sub-ARM9 devices, the economics is pointing towards cheaper smartphones on a fast network, it doesn’t make sense to port to 50 other devices when 80% of the revenue will come from a small subset of the devices.

For those of you attended the show, hopefully, it warmed you up for a really great mobile event being organized by GigaOM – Mobilize. Some terrific set of speakers and panels. I will be moderating two excellent panels (details below).

Your feedback is always welcome.

Thanks.

Chetan Sharma

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

older posts »

Future in Review (FiRe) 2009 roundup May 31, 2009

TiECON Conference Roundup

Global Wireless Data Market Update - 2008 April 28, 2009

NAB recap - Open, Personalization, Advertising April 26, 2009

Behind the Millennial Advertising Numbers April 17, 2009

Carnival of Mobilists #169 April 12, 2009

CTIA 2009 Roundup April 6, 2009

The rise of the Facebook phones February 15, 2009

Is Kindle the new iPhone? February 10, 2009

Event Recap: PNWS (Vancouver) and Location Based Advertising (PARC) January 30, 2009

Pacific Northwest Wireless Summit Next week January 12, 2009

Mobile Industry Predictions 2009 January 1, 2009

Recap of "Tomorrow’s Wireless Future" November 20, 2008

US Wireless Data Market Update - Q3 2008 November 16, 2008

Recap of the Vienna Summit November 11, 2008

On to Vienna October 23, 2008

Keynote Presentation: Introduction to Mobile Advertising

2nd Pacific NW conf on Mobile October 20, 2008

Global Wireless Data Market Update - 1H 2008 September 28, 2008

Carnival of the Mobilists #141 September 15, 2008

CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment 2008 Roundup September 12, 2008

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Future in Review (FiRe) 2009 roundup May 31, 2009

TiECON Conference Roundup

Global Wireless Data Market Update - 2008 April 28, 2009

NAB recap - Open, Personalization, Advertising April 26, 2009

Behind the Millennial Advertising Numbers April 17, 2009

Carnival of Mobilists #169 April 12, 2009

CTIA 2009 Roundup April 6, 2009

The rise of the Facebook phones February 15, 2009

Is Kindle the new iPhone? February 10, 2009

Event Recap: PNWS (Vancouver) and Location Based Advertising (PARC) January 30, 2009

Pacific Northwest Wireless Summit Next week January 12, 2009

Mobile Industry Predictions 2009 January 1, 2009

Recap of "Tomorrow’s Wireless Future" November 20, 2008

US Wireless Data Market Update - Q3 2008 November 16, 2008

Recap of the Vienna Summit November 11, 2008

On to Vienna October 23, 2008

Keynote Presentation: Introduction to Mobile Advertising

2nd Pacific NW conf on Mobile October 20, 2008

Global Wireless Data Market Update - 1H 2008 September 28, 2008

Carnival of the Mobilists #141 September 15, 2008

CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment 2008 Roundup September 12, 2008

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