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Announcing Mobile Future Forward 2013 - Mining the trillion dollar opportunity May 13, 2013

Posted by chetan in : Fourth Wave, Mobile Applications, Mobile Future, Mobile Future Forward, US Wireless Market, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

Greetings,

I hope you are enjoying spring.

I thought I will provide an update on our fall mobile executive summit – Mobile Future Forward (Sept 10th in Seattle). I am very pleased to announce the preliminary program. We will provide regular updates as we add new executives to the program and continue to refine the discussion topics to give you the best learning and networking experience you can find in the mobile industry. As you know, our programs are deep in content and high on participant caliber. Each year we strive to bring together some of the leading thinkers and doers from around the world to brainstorm the future of mobile. As we like to call it – it is a mobile boot camp with the brightest brains in mobile.

The mobile industry is entering what I call the “golden period” of its evolution. The fourth wave of mobile is going to generate trillions of dollars over the course of the next decade. The ecosystem will become more diverse, each of the major verticals will get redefined by mobile, and consumers around the globe will benefit tremendously from connections to information, intelligence, objects, and each other. Enterprise productivity and efficiency will increase manifold and the golden period of mobile will help shape human history. But how and by whom? That will be the crux of the summit in September.

We are delighted to be partnering with some of the leading players in the ecosystem: CitrixByteMobile, Ericsson, Intel, Synchronoss, and Telefonica.

Some of the outstanding group of executives who are responsible for changing the face of the industry every day will be leading the discussion. Their insights will be invaluable and actionable.

Confirmed Speakers

· Ralph de la Vega, President and CEO, AT&T Mobility

· Steve Elfman, President, Sprint

· Erik Moreno, EVP, Fox Networks

· Danny Bowman, Chief Sales and Operating Officer, Samsung

· Terry Myerson, Corporate Vice President – Windows Phone, Microsoft

· Marios Zenios, VP – Uconnect, Chrysler Group

.. More to come

· Stephen David, former CIO, P&G

· Glenn Lurie, President, AT&T Mobility

· Marianne Marck, SVP – Consumer Facing Technology, Starbucks

· Henning Schulzrinne, CTO, FCC

· Fay Arjomandi, Head Vodafone Xone, Vodafone

· Biju Nair, EVP and CSO, Synchronoss

The Mobile Future Forward team, our esteemed partners, our fantastic speakers and our engaged community are really looking forward to Sept 10th.

I hope you will join us in what is shaping up to be an exceptional gathering of the mobile minds. Registration is open now. Early bird will expire May 31st.

Thanks and best wishes.

Kind regards,

Chetan Sharma

Abhi Ingle – The Mobile Cloud Connected Enterprise May 6, 2013

Posted by chetan in : 4G, 4th Wave, Applications, Enterprise Mobility, Mobile Cloud Computing, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Future Forward, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

image mffbook2011_s

The following piece is excerpted from the 2011 Mobile Future Forward Book – Connected Universe. Unlimited Opportunities. It was written by Abhi Ingle, then VP, Advanced Mobility Solutions at AT&T and now VP of Innovation and Head of Foundry  at AT&T

Technology and Structural Change

An observation of the technology industry reveals three broad trends having a visible impact on business today. First, mobile computing devices continue to add computing capacity and new capabilities at an exponential rate of growth (Figure 1a and 1b). (Moore’s Law is still very much in effect and shows no signs of slowing). Second, wireline and wireless connectivity is being migrated to a flat, high-speed internet protocol architecture providing the ability for the stack of services to be disaggregated. This allows applications to run seamlessly across multiple devices simultaneously in stationary, nomadic and mobile scenarios. Third, the explosion of cloud computing in terms of infrastructures, platforms and applications continues to develop and is now gaining acceptance in mainstream scenarios, both consumer and business (Figure 2).

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Figure 1a and 1b: New Uses for Computing (Source: IDC) and New Model of Computing Innovation (Source: 2011. Intel Investor Meeting).

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Figure 2: AT&T Mobile Data Volumes Up 8,000% Over Four Years (Source: 2011. AT&T).

Amplifying the impact of these technological changes is a sea-change in technology purchasing, evaluation and consumption in the marketplace. Technology purchasing–previously a top-down IT-driven process–has now morphed in to a bottom-up consumer-driven phenomenon. Alternately referred to as the “consumerization of IT” or the “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) movement, it is having a tremendous influence on business IT, effectively redefining where and how technology decisions are made. (Ted Schadler (Forrester Research) and Josh Bernoff (Forrester Research) have written Empowered, an entire book dedicated to this trend alone).

Any of these advances taken individually is an exciting evolution, but the opportunity presented by the combination of these technologies and trends taken together is revolutionary. This troika of technological advancements and industry trends can be viewed through two lenses, either as an incredible opportunity or an insurmountable challenge.

This dichotomous view is understandable. There are formidable obstacles as companies realize that they may have to reengineer twenty years of PC-centric architecture to contend with multiple connected devices, multiple computing platforms and multiple applications (which may or may not run on all of the same platforms). It can be an overwhelming task even for the most forward-thinking organizations. We choose to view this as a rare opportunity for businesses agile enough to harness these trends to make dramatic business improvements by transforming classic enterprise IT architectures to real-time, business process driven, cloud-based mobile architectures. A systemic phased approach with the right partners can make this a manageable and self-funding transformation.

We find the three technology changes referenced earlier to be mutually reinforcing. For example, the advent of powerful smartphones, tablets and connected devices changes the computing paradigm to be one in which there are many devices per person. Having several devices inherently leads to the necessity to have data and applications accessible by multiple devices simultaneously.

What is the phenomenon ideally suited for housing applications allowing access from multiple end points? The cloud! And, of course, all of this would not work if all of these devices were not always on and connected through incredibly fast flat IP networks (wireless and wireline). The business network is, in fact, the most mature virtualized element, secure MPLS-based connectivity which increasingly forms the core of enterprise connectivity today was the original “cloud or virtualized” service. The virtualization of data centers, servers, storage, processing power and the XaaS phenomenon is taking the other elements towards the same evolution as the network, in effect creating a virtualized or cloud fabric in which network, processing, storage and software can flex to the needs of the enterprise on a dynamic basis (Figure 3).

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Figure 3: Cascading Waves of Innovation (Source: 2011. AT&T).

Much has been written about the technologies involved in this change, but surprisingly little about a business framework that can fully take advantage of these changes. Capitalizing on this opportunity will require a holistic framework encompassing people, processes, assets (Figure 4) and linkages between the three in an architecture that provides the enterprise with the ability to sense, analyze and respond in real-time (Figure 5).

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Figure 4: Framework for a Real-Time Event Driven Enterprise. (Source: 2011. AT&T).

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Figure 5: Sense, Analyze, Respond Relationship. (Source: 2011. AT&T).

Consider two companies we have worked with recently on extreme ends of the spectrum. The first, a large beverage distribution company, with a history of successfully implementing progressive mobility solutions, wanted to retain its competitive advantage.

The second, a 20-person company providing specialized healthcare supplies, with no automation, sought to capitalize on creating a real-time enterprise which they could never have afforded prior to these technological changes. Both of these companies have dramatically transformed their business processes around the concept of the real-time enterprise in which people, process and assets are always connected and can be optimized on the go.

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Figure 6: Beverage distribution company scenario illustrates real-time demand and supply adaptation (Source: 2011 AT&T).

To understand how the beverage distribution company is thinking about the future and how they can capitalize on the technology changes, visualize this scenario:

A large group of bicycle riders are out on a long ride on their bicycles on a hot day and require a sports drink to rehydrate (Figure 6, Illustration A). Those of you familiar with road biking will recall that the form fitting lycra outfits that most road bikers wear typically limit what one can carry. Imagine that on the bicycle’s handlebar (where in the past a GPS device would have resided) is instead a sled for the rider’s mobile smartphone, GPS and near field communications, where he or she can use an application to locate the nearest drink machine (Figure 6, Illustration B) and get directions to it (Figure 6, Illustration C).

Once there, the rider can use his or her mobile device to pay for and receive a drink using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. The process is repeated for the entire group of bikers, depleting the machine of all the sport drinks (Figure 6, Illustration D). In a non-real time world, the company would fail its’ consumer at the moment of truth – it would direct thirsty riders to an empty machine. But in our real-time connected world, the connected vending machine has already signaled its status to the cloud, has been taken off the database before the next set of riders would see, and they are automatically directed to the next closest machine.

Simultaneously, cloud based analytics ensure that “restock work orders” are routed to all supply trucks in the area (Figure 6, Illustration E). (All trucks are equipped with automated vehicle location technologies that are continuously connected). Each supply truck driver has a handheld device to receive the alert and the ability to accept a restocking order and go refill the depleted machine. As soon as this is done the vending machine resignals its status and is immediately shown on the next dynamic search a consumer makes. Imagine the efficiencies and revenue maximization as a result of these real-time interactions!

One could even imagine correlating this cycle to the weather/temperature or time of day to drive even further efficiencies. Clearly, not everything outlined in this scenario has been implemented to date, but by preparing for the future, this company is systemically transforming its business processes and moving to a real-time mobile IT architecture.

Now let’s take a look at the small twenty person specialized health supplies company harnessing these technology trends to completely revise the operations of their company around a mobile, real- time cloud delivered core.

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Figure 7: Rehabilitation Company Specializing in Wheelchairs (Source: 2011 AT&T).
(ProntoForms is a trademark of TrueContext Corporation.)

The Scenario Prior to Transformation: The company– a privately owned corporation–supplies custom wheelchairs to customers. The company operated primarily via paper forms requiring extensive calling back and forth using basic phones and a classic company reception system despite the fact that the company could not afford to keep the company phone line staffed around the clock. The company also owned two delivery vans to pick up and deliver wheelchairs the company was either servicing or supplying. Since the company could not afford any more vans, multiple calls to these vans to ensure on time delivery and pickup was critical.

The AT&T Mobility Applications Consultant who called upon this company soon realized the company was too small to either host, manage or support any onsite software or even deploy and maintain PCs. The answer was delivering four applications through the cloud direct to smartphones (in this case iPhones) and to specialized tracking devices. What follows is a summary of the 4 different solutions and the problems they addressed. (Refer to Figure 7 for the following).

Solution #1: The company’s wheelchair technicians used paper forms for everything they did; surveying customers about their needs, taking down specs or noting repairs delivered. This equated to three different forms over four pages in length. Each day field technicians filled out the forms and turned them in. Then they were formally entered/rekeyed at the end of every day. This was a time consuming effort with frequent errors and inaccuracies that had to be found, corrected, and re-entered.

The company was transitioned to a cloud delivered, mobile forms solution. The Pronto Forms Solution delivered by AT&T converted a paper intensive environment into a highly efficient method of capturing data. The forms were automated on iPhones for the field technicians and eliminated all the paperwork and rekeying steps, cutting the previous process time by approximately 75% per form. The information is also available online as soon as the technician fills out the form.

Solution #2: As previously mentioned, this company has two vans on the road constantly making deliveries. But the owner has no visibility as to current vehicle location, if they are on schedule, and if the miles driven are valid.

The TeleNav Vehicle Tracker from AT&T, a vehicle tracking solution involving a box that can be attached to the van and a cloud delivered portal provides visibility of corporate vehicles at all times. This ensures the vehicles whereabouts, if the driver is on schedule, and how far the vehicles have been driven. All this leads to better customer service, better image, and increased safety, security, and business stability.

Solution #3: The owner often needed to send out communication blasts to employees to see if someone could fulfill a particular task when they were short staffed in one department, but the owner and employees were only able to receive messages from customers on a 1:1 basis, slowing communication down. The implementation of AT&T Enterprise Paging allowed the owner to send one message to all employees via a simple text messaging portal and confirm receipt/delivery of messages.

Solution #4: After-hours management of the business was practically non-existent since the company was so small, yet their customers were dependent on their wheelchairs and needed the ability to reach someone in the company immediately.

AT&T Office@Hand, a cloud delivered PBX to the smartphone with a very simple web GUI, provided the customer with the ability to better manage and control after-hours service. It unifies employees in a business-on-one-phone system and includes auto-receptionist, multiple extensions, voicemail, call handling, faxing, and other features. The owner can assign a receptionist, a “sales, technician or repair” department on the fly depending on which employees are available.

The bottom line: The company was able to accomplish with $99 smartphones and asset tracking devices and a monthly software subscription fee of <$500, what would have previously involved buying $800-$1000 PCs , tens of thousands of dollars of enterprise software, a PBX system and an IT person to deploy and manage the software and communications. The difference is startling! Contrast capital and OPEX running into $200,000 vs. a CAPEX of <$1500 and monthly subscription fees of <$500 for the software. Even better, all of this is delivered by one company (AT&T) with a simple monthly bill that includes: Voice charges, data charges and applications charges all as one consolidated bill with one point of contact. This scenario even 3-4 years ago was unimaginable prior to the convergence of the three technology trends. It is the ultimate democratization of technology.

Changing Roles for Everyone In the Value Chain

The trends that we outlined above have profound implications for everyone involved in the technology delivery, evaluation, implementation and support chain. Consider the two examples outlined above. Each of these involved solutions comprised of innovative applications that live in the cloud and are delivered to smartphones or “always on connected devices” and paid for via subscription models.

Consider my own company, AT&T. Many of you are likely surprised that the role AT&T is playing in a rapidly evolving market such as this, and many of you might be skeptical of the need/value /competency of AT&T to play such a role, and rightfully so.

To illustrate my position, I would ask anyone who is curious to conduct a simple experiment. While inside of Apple’s App Store or the Android Market, type in “business application” and stand back as you compile thousands of results. How does a small company determine which application is right for them? How does a small company perform the due diligence to determine which platforms each application will run on, and on which models provided by which service providers? How does a business support, manage and develop to these platforms? Finally, try to find application providers able to provide enterprise billing as opposed to a consumer centric credit card only option.

We came to the conclusion that AT&T needed to adapt to the times by morphing our role to provide solutions to help businesses harness the mobile cloud phenomenon. As a supplier of mobile hardware, virtual private networks and data centers which can serve up mobile applications, we are uniquely qualified to deliver integrated solutions to customers.

But the change from delivering monolithic communication products to a collaborative enterprise partnering with dozens of hardware and software providers is not easy. It requires a significant transformation. First, in our people; hiring and training Mobile Application Consultants, ecosystem managers and vertical specialists. Second, in our process; moving from a product sale architected, managed and supported by AT&T, to a complex solution assembled across many different participants and supported through partnerships. And third, in our assets; from managing a network to a fixed set of devices, to managing a network that connects virtual private mobile application clouds to millions of smartphones, tablets and connected end points.

We felt we had no choice but to make this journey to stay relevant in the brave new world of mobile IT, cloud platforms and connected devices. The AT&T objective is, in effect, to help businesses master the melding of communications and computing together by knitting a series of ecosystem partnerships and providing a platform for other companies to innovate on via hardware and software and services. We believe we can simplify the process of harnessing technology for many business segments and serve as a broad distribution channel for small innovative companies (such as the types of companies showcased in the examples provided earlier) that struggle with brand, distribution and enterprise billing.

Given the far reaching impact of these changes, we believe it is important for all participants in the value chain to rethink their role, assets, people and partnerships for the years to come. Provided below is a quick synopsis of practical implications and considerations for different participants.

Changing Role of the CIO and the Enterprise IT Department

As outlined, in the Advisory Board Article (The Space Race – The Competitive Implications of Next-Generation IT Architecture, Research Summary, The Research Board. June 2010) on the changing role of the CIO, dramatic changes are occurring in the IT department as well. In effect, many companies have gone from having IT departments that DO things (own and drive projects) to an IT department that MANAGES things (potentially working with outside service providers).

This change has an influence on the balance of power between IT departments and Line-of-Business (LOB) departments. In some cases LOB departments find themselves in the unique situation of no longer requiring the assistance of IT and go directly to an external service provider (supplanting the internal IT department). In these cases, the IT department finds itself in the unique situation of having to compete against other service providers as an alternate provider. Enterprise IT should ask themselves if their highest value is in buying piece parts and spend time integrating these solutions or developing them in-house? Or does it make more sense to turn your department into high value business process analysis groups supplemented by strong architects who can put the various solution providers together?

The answer for each company will vary, but there is little doubt that a journey towards the latter is necessary. This may warrant changing hiring profiles to shift from maintenance and integration talent to personnel with strong architecture, business analysis and skills in user interfaces and experiences.

1) Software Providers: Consider how software is going to be delivered in the future. Do you stick with shrink wrapped software or begin delivering software over the cloud? Should you do that yourself or partner with others to do that? Who should the partners be? Should the cloud be private or public? Once again, there is no one-size-fits-all answer, for the larger companies such as SAP, it may make sense to build out their own cloud as well as partner with service providers like AT&T. For the smaller companies, they need to also consider the value of distribution, brand, billing and support services in addition to just the cost/capital to build out the cloud.

2) Hardware Suppliers: The success of the iPhone and iPad, tightly integrated mobile platforms and hardware, has every hardware manufacturer wondering if they need to also provide an end-to-end controlled experience. HP has clearly chosen to go down that path with the purchase of Palm/WebOS. Dell on the other hand has bet on a loose coupling with Android and Windows Phone 7. Nokia on the other hand has tightly coupled itself to Windows Phone 7 while Samsung and HTC continue to play across both. How far do hardware manufacturers go down the route of content/application services? How far into systems integration and services do they extend without alienating their downstream channels? How does the entire PC ecosystem transition the set of support, management and application services from the WINTEL era to the post PC, multi-OS environment? These are important issues that the established hardware ecosystem is dealing with even now.

3) Systems Integrators: As hardware and software players forward integrate, is it enough to ally with purely software providers to build “practices” or does it make more sense to ally with new emerging or established service providers? Is there a way for Systems Integrators to move upstream and focus on complex custom application development and service/change management (which most service providers will have little appetite for) and leave the simpler pre-packaged and configured applications to be delivered directly by software providers and/or service providers?

4) Service Providers: Does one move up the value chain and become an integrated supplier of cloud, application and mobile computing service or do you strip away complexity and focus purely on providing bandwidth? What is the set of systems integration and software relationship needed to accomplish this? What is the set of cloud/network APIs that will need to be opened up to truly build a platform on which an ecosystem can build and thrive on and act as a pull through for the infrastructure services? Again, as with all other players in the value chain, the answer will be different depending on the scale, scope and ambitions of the service provider.

Whichever path the companies in the value chain pick, they must all remember the familiar dictum of “adapt or die”. The list of companies throughout many different industries that were unable to adapt to changes in innovation is long. Consider some companies that were considered “unsinkable”: One invented the instant film camera (among many other camera-based devices) that was on the market from 1948 through 2008, or the computer company that employed over 33,000 and had revenues of over $3B in the 1980s, or the airline that was a cultural icon of the 20th century and shaped the international airline industry… All utterly dominated their respective markets for extended periods of time, then failed to either recognize change, or adjust to it, and ended up perishing.

The current force of technology change is powerful enough that if Mary Meeker from Morgan Stanley is to be believed, we are in the middle of a significant evolution in computing. She calls it the “5th wave” (Figure 8).

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Figure 8: The 5th Wave of Computing (Source: Morgan Stanley).

One can debate whether it is the 3rd, 4th or 5th wave, but the historical shift in market position and innovation that have accompanied every such wave, one thing we can all agree upon is that the only constant will be change itself. I hope that companies will seize upon this opportunity to unleash an era that we will look back on as the ultimate democratization of computing and connectivity.

At this time of uncertainty, it is edifying to remember a quote from the 35th President of the United States:

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
- John F. Kennedy

Mobile Breakfast Series – June Events March 26, 2013

Posted by chetan in : HTML5, LTE, Mobile Breakfast Series, Mobile Future Forward, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

Greetings,

It was awesome to see so many of you at the Mobile Breakfast Series Event last week. For those of you who couldn’t make it, here is the summary.

We also announced the date for our Mobile Future Forward program – Sept 10th in Seattle. Stay tuned for some really exciting announcements regarding speakers and the program.

Also pleased to announce the next two breakfast series events.

June 11th – Seattle – HTML5 – Is it really disruptive?

HTML5 has been talked about for a long time as the most disruptive force for mobile applications since the Apple Appstore was launched 5 years ago. But, can it really change the industry dynamics? How do you solve the reach problem for the developers? Many interesting initiatives in 2013 like Firefox OS but will they make a difference? How do developers view HTML5? We will take the pulse of the industry and ask the tough questions.

Hank Skorny, Vice President and GM – Consumer Software, Intel

June 25th – Dallas – LTE and Beyond – The Future of Mobile Networks

US is leading the globe in LTE deployment. In fact, most of the cutting-edge engineering with mobile networks is happening here with all major operators deploying LTE. What’s next for mobile networks? How will they evolve over the course of the next decade? Will we be able to keep ahead of the insatiable consumer demand for more?

Kris Rinne, Senior Vice President, Architecture and Network Planning, AT&T

Vish Nandlall, Chief Technology Officer and Head of Strategy, Ericsson

.. more speakers to be announced.

Registration is open now. First come, first served.

If you have any burning questions or any feedback, please feel free to send us a note.

Have a great spring and we will see you soon.

Thanks

US Mobile Market Update Q4 2012 and full year 2012 March 13, 2013

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, 4th Wave, AORTA, Chetan Sharma Consulting, Intellectual Property, Mobile Cloud Computing, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Future Forward, Patent Strategy, Smart Phones, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

http://www.chetansharma.com/usmarketupdateq42012.htm

Summary

The US mobile data market grew 3% Q/Q and 15% Y/Y to cross $20B for the first time in Q412. Data is now almost 44% of the US mobile industry service revenues and as we had forecasted a few years back, the cross-over point of 50% might occur later this year. For the year 2012, the market ended up with $79 Billion in data revenues much higher than any other market. The overall mobile services revenue were $182 Billion. For the year 2013, we are expecting $90 Billion in mobile data service revenues for the US market.

For the year, the market added 9 million new connections, a decline of 56% from 2012. The postpaid category suffered a 97% decline despite Verizon and AT&T collectively adding 6.3M postpaid subs. Sprint and T-Mobile collectively lost over 3.3M postpaid subs in 2012.

The last year T-Mobile had Y/Y positive postpaid net-adds growth, George Bush was still the president, Facebook was in diapers, and Pinterest wasn’t even born yet. T-Mobile suffered its tenth straight quarter of postpaid declines. Cumulatively, in the last fifteen quarters, while Verizon and AT&T have added 15M and 8M postpaid subs respectively, Sprint and T-Mobile have lost approximately 4.7M each. Once Nextel is sunsetted for good (it is down to 2.1M subs), we can expect a pick-up of net-postpaid subs at Sprint.

2012 saw a couple of block-buster operator M&As that took many in the industry by surprise. T-Mobile found a soul mate in MetroPCS while Softbank showed up at the altar for Sprint. T-Mobile is adopting the challenger role while Sprint that of a disruptor.

As we mentioned in our previous update, smartphones are now past the 50% mark in the US and continue to sell at a brisk pace accounting for over 90% of the devices sold in Q4 2012. Apple led the smartphone sales amongst the top 4 operators with 51% share for the year. While the US penetration of smartphones is over 50% as we reported last year, the 50% of the sub base is concentrated in only 30% of the households thus leaving plenty of growth left in the marketplace.

In terms of Y/Y growth, Connected Devices segment grew 12%, Wholesale 9%, Prepaid 6%, and Postpaid was flat. The connected devices segment only grew 1% in Q4 2012 Q/Q.

Verizon and AT&T maintained their top positions in the global rankings by mobile data revenues. A survey of the entire ecosystem shows that the US companies dominate the top 5 rankings of profit share. China Mobile leads the industry with Apple, Verizon, AT&T, and NTT DoCoMo completing the rankings.

Race for the 3rd ecosystem

2013 might help define the 3rd ecosystem or at least separate wannabes from the true contenders. While iOS and Android duel out on the top (with iOS ahead in the US market), there is fight for the distant #3. Windows made a grand entry in Q4 but the sales have disappointed. Blackberry is hoping its Q/Z10s will do the trick and help revive its fortune or at least boost the asking price.

Last quarter, Microsoft and its partners launched a worldwide campaign for a chance to compete. It went from a dominant position to virtually zilch coinciding with the remarkable ascend of iOS and Android. To make any device sell – one needs good and competitive device, distribution channel and marketing muscle, and brand loyalty. I think Windows 8 is genuinely good, is different, and for the first time can stand with its peers (obviously it needs to build a robust apps portfolio and a stronger developer ecosystem).

In the past, while operators, OEMs, and Microsoft announced significant advertising spend, it had almost negligible impact on sales. The actual $ amount spend was tepid, operators didn’t want to be guinea pigs just to prop up a third ecosystem. With Windows 8, things might get better. We can see many more awareness campaigns, more OEMs are launching some quality devices, and operators are warming up to the idea as well. The brand loyalty index for Microsoft Mobile is fairly low and it will take a heavy lift and a few billion dollars of advertising spend to move the needle. The good news is that the devices are shipping at all price points.

Microsoft also made a splash with the first computing device in its history – Surface. Both got a mixed reception from the market. In the US, Nokia is selling 80% of the windows volume making the future of the two companies inextricably tied together. Can the windows ecosystem thrive without Samsung’s support?

Additionally, there has been movement with other OSs like Firefox, Tizen, Jolla, and Ubuntu.

Apple’s dominated 2012 – what’s next?

For 2012, Apple dominated the device sales accounting for 51% of the smartphone sales amongst the top four mobile operators. In Q4, its share rose to 59% of the sales on the back of a successful iPhone 5 launch. AT&T sold a record 8.6M units followed by Verizon’s 6.2M. For the year, AT&T sold a record 21.3M iPhones. So, while globally, Android dominates iOS more than 2:1, the US subsidy model has helped Apple keep its lead from Android. But, will it last? Enough ink has been spilt to answer that question. Undoubtedly, Samsung and others have caught up Apple on device specs and ease of use, even created new categories that Apple didn’t foresee, but, Apple is still the player to beat in 2013. Apple has clearly exposed its Achilles heel – software and services. It will take some heavy lifting to gain back confidence and momentum.

Samsung’s rise

The rise of Samsung and its domination of the Android ecosystem was clearly one of the most captivating stories of 2012. Samsung is making more revenue from Android than rest of the ecosystem put together. Samsung is firing on all cylinders, works better with its distribution partners, and has the bank balance to fight toe-to-toe for its share of the market. It is also in the unique position of having good perch in all the three major screens – mobile, laptops, and TV. But, software and services is also a weak spot for the company. How quickly it beefs up its offerings and how ambitious it is in providing end-to-end solutions will determine its competitiveness in the next 24 months.

Despite setbacks in the IP battles, Samsung continued its march of being the undisputed unit leader in mobile device space. After displacing Nokia in Q1 2012, it continued to dominate in units shipped in 2012. However, Apple dominates both the smartphone revenues and more importantly just crushes the competition on device profits. It has only 6% of the global unit shipment share but over 70% profit share. In tablets, Apple completely dominates the landscape in both shipments and revenue. In fact, 95% of the profits in the tablet segment go to Apple with the remaining ecosystem fighting for the crumbs.

The Fourth Wave has arrived – the shift towards services

If you attended the AT&T developer summit and Verizon keynote at CES this January, you might have noticed the subtle shift from devices/access to services/solutions. In our paper on the topic “Operator’s Dilemma (and opportunity): The Fourth Wave”, I proposed that we need a new framework to think about the next generation of revenue opportunities. The fourth curve opportunities are massive but require a different skill set and strategic approach than the past three curves. It is being widely adopted in the operator community around the world and some operators have started to break out the 4th wave revenues in their financials. We will have more discussion about how things are shaping on the fourth wave in future research papers.

The Patent Battles

In 2012, Samsung had a strong showing not only in the market place but also in the patents area. It edged past Nokia to become the overall mobile patents leader in the industry. IBM and Microsoft also improved their rankings. Nokia, Ericsson, and Alcatel-Lucent slid in rankings. Motorola dropped out of top 10. Not surprisingly, companies who have been around for a while especially in the infrastructure and the platform space lead the overall mobile patents. Samsung has been fiercely building its patent portfolio in both Europe and the US and the efforts have paid off as it has built a significant portfolio and a formidable lead that is likely to serve it well in the coming years.

A more startling observation is the mobile patent grants as a percentage of the total patent grants in a given year have risen significantly for the US market indicating the importance innovators attach to mobile in their business. In the US, one out of every five patent granted in 2012 was related to mobile. Less than a decade ago, this number was less than 10%. The European market has seen lower growth relative to the US market. Roughly one out of every ten patents granted in Europe are mobile related.

We will have a more detailed analysis of the patent landscape of the mobile industry later this month.

The vanishing Tier-2s

The so called Tier-2s in the US market are practically done. For the year 2012, the top 4 Tier-2 operators suffered a drastic 77% decline in net-adds. Combined they added a measly 366K subscriptions. One of the reasons is that the tier-1s are now squarely focused on the prepaid market as a growth engine. Sprint has had a long history in the segment with brands like Boost and Virgin. T-Mobile’s has retooled itself to go after the prepaid and wholesale opportunities. Additionally, the top 2 have also been launching attractive plans for the prepaid segment. That’s why the top 4 added ten times the prepaid subs compared to the next 4 operators. With Metro gone and Clearwire on the blocks, we expect the Tier-2s to lose their relevancy in the market.

Operator M&A – The Rule of Three Strikes Back

Just when you thought the prospects of any major operator M&A slowed down due to the impending US election, T-Mobile announced its acquisition of Metro PCS giving it more spectrum, access to public markets, a good chunk of subscriber base to become a more competitive number 4. Sprint and Softbank followed the announcement with an absolutely brilliant maneuver. It provides Sprint access to capital, economies of scale, and becomes a much stronger number 3, and a global telecom player with scale and ambition. The T-Mobile-Metro merger has been approved by the FCC and we expect Sprint merger to go through as well.

There have been some interesting twists and turns but as we have stated before, the US market competitive equilibrium will be complete when Sprint and T-Mobile get together at some point down the road. As outlined in our research paper on the subject, market forces find their way to get to 3 dominant operators that compete for attention and revenues, rest becomes noise. While the regulators might scoff at the idea, the inevitable market forces will find their way around.

Surface, mini, and the tablet market

Apple launched the iPad mini in 2012 for some of the same principles that Microsoft launched Surface. It is better to be cannibalized by self than by the enemy. Microsoft saw the notebook market shrink and needed a product to stem the bleeding while Apple saw Amazon and Google attack the bottom tier with a different model that poses a credible threat. Tablet market is indeed fundamentally altering computing in many ways. The changing landscape of computing also has impact on the ecosystem and the application development environment. Developers flock to platform reach, ease of access to the marketplace, and the basic economics of a viable business model. Windows as a percentage of computing platforms is shrinking drastically which threats not only the platform but also Microsoft’s other software franchises. Surface is classic blocking and tackling to provide a jolt to the shifting ecosystem. Surface RT was an expected disaster but Surface Pro will see takers in the corporate world. With iPad mini, Apple is attempting to lock the mid-top tier of the tablet market and daring its competitors to just play in the bottom tier that leaves no profit on the hardware and revenue stream from services for a very select few.

2012 – US Highlights and Milestones

2012 provided enough drama and suspense for the year, good enough for a hit Spielberg flick. Here were some of the highlights from the US market:

· Samsung went past Nokia to become the world’s biggest OEM by unit volume

· Qualcomm eclipsed Intel in market cap marking another milestone in the progression of the mobile ecosystem.

· Verizon sold 29M smartphones (with half of them being LTE) and AT&T sold 10.2M in Q4 – all US records.

· Shared data plans were introduced by Verizon and AT&T which have been viewed by the consumers favorably.

· The focus of operator metrics is changing from ARPU to ARPA to AMPA.

· After dealing with the AT&T-T-Mobile merger in 2011, the regulators were back to work with the T-Mobile-MetroPCS and Softbank-Sprint mergers.

· Verizon and AT&T Wireless became the top two mobile operators globally by mobile data revenues.

· US market saw its first decline in both messaging revenues and volumes.

· Smartphones penetration eclipsed the 50% mark.

· Over 42M tablets were sold in the US with more than half being iPads. Globally, Apple went past 100M iPads in cumulative sales making it the fastest computing platform.

· mCommerce started to eclipse eCommerce for some companies.

· Amazon made a splash with its Kindle line of tablets, the sales have been steady. Google’s Nexus devices also got good traction.

· The average number of connected devices per household was over five.

What to expect in the coming months?

All this has setup an absolutely fascinating 2013 in the communication/computing industry. Convergence is everywhere and is leading to a fundamental reset of the value chains and ecosystems. Players who firmly attach themselves to the 4th wave will reap benefits while the ones who miss it will see their fortunes dwindle. We are gearing up for our annual Mobile Brainstorm Summit – Mobile Future Forward on Sept 10th, hope you can join us. Details to come.

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

Against this backdrop, the analysis of the Q4 2012 and full year 2012 US wireless data market is:

Service Revenues

ARPU

Subscribers

Applications and Services

Handsets

Mobile Data Growth

Intellectual Property/Patents

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

We will be keeping a close eye on the trends in the wireless data sector in our blog, twitter feeds, future research reports, and articles. The next US Wireless Data Market update will be released in May 2013. The next Global Wireless Data Market update will be issued in Apr 2013.

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

US Mobile Data Market Update Q3 2012 November 12, 2012

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, Applications, Infrastructure, LTE, M&A, Mergers and Acquisitions, Messaging, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Cloud Computing, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Future Forward, Mobile OEMs, Mobile Operators, Mobile Payments, Mobile Traffic, Privacy, Security, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so far

US Mobile Data Market Update Q3 2012

http://www.chetansharma.com/usmarketupdateq32012.htm

 

 

Summary

The US mobile data market grew 3% Q/Q and 17% Y/Y to reach $19.9B in Q3 2012. Data is now almost 43% of the US mobile industry service revenues. For the year 2012, the market is on track for mobile data revenues in the US market to reach our initial estimate of $80 billion.

Largely due to the strong postpaid performance by Verizon, the US operators added a net of 2.4M new subscribers. Sprint and T-Mobile saw further postpaid declines. For T-Mobile, Q3 marked the nine straight quarters of postpaid losses.

The quarter also saw a couple of block-buster operator M&As that took many in the industry by surprise. T-Mobile found a soul mate in MetroPCS while Softbank showed up at the altar for Sprint. Once the mergers are executed, Sprint is likely to emerge as the stronger of the two.

The two horse OS race got a new participant entry last month – Windows 8. Microsoft and its partners launched a worldwide campaign for a chance to compete. Microsoft also made a splash with the first computing device in its history – Surface. Both got a mixed reception from the market. We will find out how consumers will react in the Q4 numbers. Of all the OEMs, Q4 will be the most critical for Nokia who is running out of runway in its turnaround effort.

Despite setbacks in the IP battles, Samsung continued its march of being the undisputed unit leader in mobile device space. After displacing Nokia in Q1 2012, it continued to dominate in units shipped in Q3 2012. However, Apple dominates both the smartphone revenues and more importantly just crushes the competition on device profits. It has only 6% of the global unit shipment share but over 70% profit share. In tablets, Apple completely dominates the landscape in both shipments and revenue. In fact, 95% of the profits in the tablet segment go to Apple with the remaining ecosystem fighting for the crumbs. Apple has the complete stronghold on the supply chain and has sucked out the oxygen from the OEM world.

Amazon hasn’t been shy about its ambitions in the mobile space. While the world awaits an Amazon smartphone, the company launched a slew of tablets to compete primarily with Google though its eyes are on Apple. Apple also launched iPad mini a mid-tier tablet to ward of threats coming from the bottom tier of the market.

As we mentioned it in our last update, smartphones are now past the 50% mark in the US and continue to sell at a brisk pace accounting for over 75% of the devices sold in Q3 2012.

While the US penetration of smartphones is over 50% as we reported last quarter, the 50% of the sub base is concentrated in only 30% of the households thus leaving plenty of growth left in the marketplace.

In terms of Y/Y growth, Connected Devices segment grew 19%, Prepaid 10%, Wholesale 6%, and Postpaid was flat. The connected devices segment picked up some growth after two straight quarters of sub-5% performance growth (Q/Q).

Verizon and AT&T maintained their top positions in the global rankings by mobile data revenues. A survey of the entire ecosystem shows that the US companies dominate the top 5 rankings of profit share. China Mobile leads the industry with Apple, Verizon, AT&T, and NTT DoCoMo completing the rankings.

Postpaid Doldrums and evolution of metrics – ARPU to ARPA to AMPA

The US market has added roughly 400K postpaid subs in the last two quarters. Verizon has added 2.4M, AT&T 400K, and Sprint and T-Mobile have lost a million each. Clearly, Verizon’s performance is far superior to its competitor and its relentless focus on postpaid has yielded significant benefits. Typically, the postpaid ARPU is roughly 2-3 times that of a prepaid subscriber. So, while other operators have been adding prepaid subs, the improvement to the bottom line has been tepid especially for Sprint and T-Mobile. Sprint’s losses have been primarily due to the bleeding of the Nextel customers. The iDEN network should turn off sometime next year and the continuous loss of overall postpaid subs might stop. T-Mobile faces a deeper challenge. Its net-revenue has declined in every quarter since Q4 2008, which is 15 straight quarters of revenue decline. In fact, its current revenue levels is at the Q2 2006 levels – that was six years ago. Though the company has done a terrific job upgrading the network to HSPA+ and doing blocking and tackling until it upgrades to LTE to come at par with its peers, the continuous bleeding of the postpaid subs needs a new strategy. Metro PCS helps gain new subs and spectrum but doesn’t help with postpaid. In fact, one can expect that the churn will rise as consumers migrate from Metro to T-Mobile. 2013 will be a critical transition year for the company as it tries to compete with its larger competitors. Just being a “value” provider is the race to the bottom.

We have been advocating shared data plans to create more consumer demand for over two years. When I talked to CNBC earlier this year (Jan), I said that in all likelihood the family data plans will be introduced in the US market in 2012. I discussed this more with Bloomberg and USA Today and suggested that most likely Verizon will launch them first. Verizon and AT&T launched the shared data plans this summer with AT&T getting the benefit of launching it second. New types of plans also evolved the decades-old operator metric of ARPU to ARPA (Average Revenue Per Account) given that we are seeing a strong influx of multiple devices per individual/household. Verizon was first to transition and we expect others might introduce new matrices to measure progress and performance. AMPA (Average Margin Per Account) will also become an important metric in the coming days, first internally, and then for the markets.

Messaging Decline

Most western markets have seen the net revenue in the messaging segment decline. The US market has resisted the decline thus far. In Q3 2012, for the first time, there was a decline in both the total number of messages as well as the total messaging revenue in the market. It might be early to say if the decline has begun or the market segment will sputter along before the decline takes place. As we had outlined in our fourth wave paper, once the market segment reaches the 70-90% penetration mark, the decline begins and we might be seeing the start of the decline in messaging revenue. The decline is primarily due to the rise in IP messaging and operators have been slow to evolve their strategies in the segment.

Operator’s Dilemma (And Opportunity): The Fourth Wave

In our paper “Operator’s Dilemma (and opportunity): The Fourth Wave” earlier this year, I proposed that we need a new framework to think about the next generation of revenue opportunities. The fourth curve opportunities are massive but require a different skillset and strategic approach that the past three curves. We are starting to see operators becoming more focused and aggressive. It is being widely adopted in the operator community around the world and some operators have started to break out the 4th wave revenues in their financials. We will have more discussion about how things are shaping up in future research papers.

AT&T has been better prepared in the US market and has embraced the ride on the fourth curve. It is investing in the areas of Digital Life, Mobile Premise Solutions, Mobile Payments, and Connected Vehicles. We discussed the subject at length in our recently concluded annual thought-leadership summit – Mobile Future Forward.

Operator M&A – The Rule of Three Strikes Back

Just when you thought the prospects of any major operator M&A slowed down due to the impending US election, T-Mobile announced its acquisition of Metro PCS giving it more spectrum, access to public markets, a good chunk of subscriber base to become a more competitive number 4. Sprint and Softbank followed the announcement with an absolutely brilliant maneuver. Sun Tzu would have been proud. It provides Sprint access to capital, economies of scale, and becomes a much stronger number 3, and a global telecom player with scale and ambition. There have been some interesting twists and turns but as we have stated before, the US market competitive equilibrium will be complete when Sprint and T-Mobile get together at some point down the road.As outlined in our research paper on the subject, market forces find their way to get to 3 dominant operators that compete for attention and revenues, rest becomes noise. While the regulators might scoff at the idea, the inevitable market forces will find their way around.

Connected Devices

In Q3 2012, we released some research around connected devices. If we just look at the active connected devices which can connect to the Internet directly either by wireless or wired means, either using cellular or WLAN, the total number of connected devices in the globe just crossed the 10 billion mark which means that the connected device to human ratio is now 1.3.

More details available here.

Device ecosystem

Windows 8 arrival – Sept was a big month in Microsoft’s attempt to regain its lost mobile decade. It went from a dominant position to virtually zilch coinciding with the remarkable ascend of iOS and Android. To make any device sell – one needs good and competitive device, distribution channel and marketing muscle, and brand loyalty. I think Windows 8 is genuinely good, is different, and for the first time can stand with its peers (obviously it needs to build a robust apps portfolio and a stronger developer ecosystem).

In the past, while operators, OEMs, and Microsoft announced significant advertising spend, it had almost negligible impact on sales. The actual $ amount spend was tepid, operators didn’t want to be guinea pigs just to prop up a third ecosystem. With Windows 8, things might get better. We can see many more awareness campaigns, more OEMs are launching some quality devices, and operators are warming up to the idea as well. The brand loyalty index for Microsoft Mobile is fairly low and it will take a heavy lift and a few billion dollars of advertising spend to move the needle. The good news is that the devices are shipping and it is not thanksgiving yet.

However, Nokia, once propped at every Windows Phone rally isn’t getting any special love from Microsoft anymore (in public) and it has become one of the many OEMs on the conveyer belt. Its ability to differentiate itself enough in Q4 will decide its 2013.

Last week, Qualcomm eclipsed Intel in market cap marking another milestone in the progression of the mobile ecosystem.

Surface, mini, and the tablet market

Apple launched the iPad mini for some of the same principles that Microsoft launched Surface. It is better to be cannibalized by self than by the enemy. Microsoft saw the notebook market shrink and needed a product to stem the bleeding while Apple saw Amazon and Google attack the bottom tier with a different model that poses a credible threat. Tablet market is indeed fundamentally altering computing in many ways. The changing landscape of computing also has impact on the ecosystem and the application development environment. Developers flock to platform reach, ease of access to the marketplace, and the basic economics of a viable business model. Windows a percentage of computing platform is shrinking which threats not only the platform but also Microsoft’s other software franchises. Surface is classic blocking and tackling to provide a jolt to the shifting ecosystem. With iPad mini, Apple is attempting to lock the mid-top tier of the tablet market and daring its competitors to just play in the bottom tier that leaves no profit on the hardware and revenue stream from services for a very select few.

Apple is getting a lot of grief for its maps app. While the strategic decision to take control of a key application was spot on, it faltered on communications. The half-baked endeavor was nowhere close to being the “best mapping app.”

Infrastructure segment faces a tough road ahead

The infrastructure segment of the wireless industry is facing turbulent and interesting times. The business model for many vendors hasn’t evolved much in the last few years and some of the disruptive forces are bound to have a deep impact on the segment. ALU is facing serious headwinds and will need to figure out its strategic options going forward. Ericsson’s margins are under pressure but more interestingly its services and support revenue exceeded its hardware revenue for the first time. Huawei and ZTE reported decline in revenues but they are making gains in the infrastructure markets outside US and in handsets in the US market. Until Premier Xi Jinping and President Obama sort out their geopolitical differences, the Chinese vendors remain shutout of the US infrastructure market.

What to expect in the coming months?

All this has setup an absolutely fascinating 2013 in the communication/computing industry. Convergence is everywhere and is leading to a fundamental reset of the value chains and ecosystems. Players who firmly attach themselves to the 4th wave will reap benefits while the ones who miss it will see their fortunes dwindle.

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

Against this backdrop, the analysis of the Q3 2012 US wireless data market is:

Service Revenues

· The US Wireless data service revenues grew 3% Q/Q and 17% Y/Y to $19.9B in Q3 2012. For the year 2012, we are forecasting that mobile data revenues in the US market will reach $80 billion.

ARPU

Subscribers

Applications and Services

Handsets

Mobile Data Growth

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

We will be keeping a close eye on the trends in the wireless data sector in our blog, twitter feeds, future research reports, and articles. The next US Wireless Data Market update will be released in Feb 2013. The next Global Wireless Data Market update will be issued in Mar 2013.

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

Mobile Future Forward 2012 Book – Connected Universe. Monetizing Opportunities. September 13, 2012

Posted by chetan in : Mobile Future Forward, US Wireless Market, Worldwide Wireless Market , 6 comments

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We just concluded another sold-out and successful Mobile Future Forward on monday. As is the tradition, we released our annual thought-provoking book containing some brilliant essays and interviews from leaders in the industry.

We requested some of our speakers and industry leaders to put their ideas on paper. We are very grateful to all the authors and interviewees who survived our grueling publication schedule. Hopefully, this collection will give you a good insights into how these leaders view the emerging landscape. Our thanks to Dan Hesse, Glenn Lurie, Mark Hillman, Stephen Bye, Kevin Packingham, Rebecca Prudhomme, Doug Suriano, Biju Nair, Vince Spinelli, Wim Sweldens, Erik Moreno, Abhi Ingle, and Carlos Domingo.

The thought-pieces and the interviews in this book are:

1. Operator’s Dilemma (And Opportunity): The Fourth Wave – Chetan Sharma, President, Chetan Sharma Consulting

2. Q&A with Dan Hesse, CEO, Sprint Nextel

3. The “Aha” Moment – The Case for the Embedded Tablet – Glenn Lurie, President, AT&T

4. Wasted Mobile Data – The $1B problem for Operators – Mark Hillman, SVP, Compuware

5. Q&A with Vince Spinelli, Managing Director, Juniper Networks

6. Growing the Fourth Revenue Wave – It is Now or Never – Biju Nair, Chief Strategy Officer, Synchronoss Technologies

7. LTE is here and now. What’s Next? – Stephen Bye, CTO, Sprint

8. Evolution of mobile phones: Consumer demand drives the evolution – Kevin Packingham, Chief Product Officer, Samsung

9. Q&A with Rebecca Prudhomme, VP, Amdocs

10. Mobile Operators as ‘Enablers’ to personalized ‘Anywhere, AnyTime’ Services – Doug Suriano, CTO, Tekelec

11. Q&A with Wim Sweldens, President, Alcatel-Lucent Wireless

12. The FUTURE of web is mobile – Carlos Domingo, CEO, Telefonica R&D

13. Q&A with Erik Moreno, SVP, Fox Networks

14. Mobile Patents Landscape – Chetan Sharma, President, Chetan Sharma Consulting

15. Industries That Will Never Be the Same Again – Abhi Ingle, VP, AT&T Services, Inc.

These brilliant pieces delve into all facets of the mobile economy from the chipsets to the applications, from new monetization strategies to innovative business models, from supply-chain dynamics to spectrum issues, from competitiveness to collaboration, from cloud computing to connected devices, and from data analytics to connecting with the consumers, and much more. The authors are executives who are deeply engaged in accelerating the evolution of the mobile industry, their insights will give you practical advice on how to apply knowledge to your own businesses over the course of this decade.

The book was again produced in record time but it was an exhilarating ride. Thanks to all the authors and our publishing team for making this happen.

Announcing Preliminary Agenda - Mobile Future Forward Leadership Summit, Sept 10, 2012 August 21, 2012

Posted by chetan in : Mobile Future Forward, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

Greetings Everyone!

Hope you are having a great summer.

I am very excited to announce our preliminary agenda for our upcoming Mobile Future Forward thought-leadership summit with an incredible line-up of speakers, thinkers and doers. The meeting of the minds will hopefully inspire you, help meet the most influential decision makers in the mobile ecosystem, and learn a thing or two about the future direction of the mobile industry.

Give us your one day and we will give you the next 5 years in mobile.

Registration and other information at  http://www.mobilefutureforward.com

Please note: Olympics Saver is expiring this Thursday, Aug 23, 2012. Limited Seats.

In proud partnership with: Intel, Amdocs, Compuware, Ericsson, Juniper, Synchronoss, Tekelec.

Preliminary Agenda: Mobile Future Forward – Seattle – Sept 10, 2012

 

8:30 am

Keynote Panel: Looking back from Mobile 2020 – the last 10 years.

Erik Ekudden, Head of Strategy, Ericsson (moderator)

Stephen David, former CIO, P&G

Jeff Bradley, SVP – Devices and Developer Services, AT&T

Jason Hoffman, CEO, Joyent

9:30 am

1-on-1 with Renee James

Renee James, SVP – Software and Services, Intel

Chetan Sharma, President, Chetan Sharma Consulting

10:30 am

Future of Mobile Devices

Kevin Packingham, Chief Product Officer, Samsung

Mike Woodward, President, HTC Americas

Nick Wingfield, Reporter, New York Times (moderator)

11:30 am

Mobile Operators: Succeeding on the 4th Wave

Steve Elfman, President, Sprint

Glenn Lurie, President, AT&T

Chetan Sharma, President, Chetan Sharma Consulting (moderator)

1:30 pm

LTE is here and now. What’s Next?

Stephen Bye, Chief Technology Officer, Sprint

Neville Ray, Chief Technology Officer, T-Mobile USA

Vince Spinelli, MD – Mobility Solutions, Juniper Networks

Soren Elsborg, Head of Mobile Broadband, Ericsson

Tyler Davidson, Vice President, Amdocs

Kevin Fitchard, Senior Writer, GigaOM (moderator)

Mobile Enterprise and the Cloud

Gus Hunt, Chief Technology Officer, CIA

Abhi Ingle, VP – Advanced Mobility Solutions, AT&T

Dave Whalen, VP/GM – Software Services, Intel

Marianne Marck, VP – Software Engineering, Starbucks

Ed Cantwell, SVP, West Wireless Health Institute

2:30 pm

When will Mobile Commerce eclipse Ecommerce? And How?

Michael Bayle, EVP, ESPN (moderator)

Jana Messerschmidt, VP, Twitter

Antonio Benjamin, Global CTO, Citi

Mark Young, VP, NBC Universal

Stefan Happ, SVP – mobile and online, American Express

nScreen Era – Engagement and Commerce

Oke Okaro, Global Head and GM – Mobile & Connected Devices, Bloomberg

Martin Fichter, VP - Products, HTC

Jorge Espinel, EVP, News Corp

Hank Skorny, VP/GM, Intel

Wilson Rothman, Deputy Editor, NBC News (moderator)

4:00 pm

Managing network growth in the Yottabyte Era

Dan Deeney, Partner, New Venture Partners (moderator)

Houck Reed, VP, Tekelec

Wim Sweldens, President, Alcatel Lucent Wireless

Erik Moreno, EVP, Fox

Biju Nair, SVP, Synchronoss

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

Frank Meehan, Executive, Horizons Ventures

Todd Simpson, Chief Innovation Officer, Mozilla

Mark Hillman, SVP – Strategy and Business Development, Compuware

Carlos Domingo, CEO, Telefonica R&D

Brad Duea, SVP – Product Management, T-Mobile

John Malloy, General Partner and co-founder, Blue Run Ventures (moderator)

5:00 pm

Big Data, Big Opportunities

Anjul Bhambri, VP – Big Data, IBM

Jeff Warren, VP – Mobile, Expedia

Internet of Things – Journey to 50 Billion

Mark Anderson, CEO, SNS (moderator)

Amir Mashkoori, CEO, Kovio

Jeff Smith, CTO, Numerex

Kevin Howard, CEO, ICG

Bobby Morrison, President, Verizon

Sebastien Taveau, CTO, Validity

US Wireless Market Update – Q2 2012 August 13, 2012

Posted by chetan in : Connected Devices, Enterprise Mobility, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Cloud Computing, Mobile Future, Mobile Future Forward, Strategy, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so far

US Wireless Market Update Q2 2012

http://chetansharma.com/USmarketupdateQ22012.htm
Summary

The US mobile data market grew 5% Q/Q and 19% Y/Y to reach $19.3B in Q2 2012. Data is now almost 42% of the US mobile industry service revenues. For the year 2012, the market is on track for mobile data revenues in the US market to reach our initial estimate of $80 billion.

The US operators reversed the postpaid decline in last quarter to add almost 400K postpaid subs largely due to the strong performance of Verizon Wireless. Sprint and T-Mobile saw further postpaid declines. For T-Mobile, Q2 marked the eight straight quarters of postpaid losses.

In terms of Y/Y growth, Connected Devices segment grew 21%, Prepaid 12%, Wholesale 4%, and Postpaid was flat. AT&T, AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon are number one respectively in these categories. The connected devices segment has been an area of growth for the industry but for the second straight quarter, the Q/Q growth fell below 5%. This is largely driven by lower growth in the M2M segment.

Driven largely by the economy, the prepaid subscriptions went past 100 M for the first time in the US market. Given that the revenue from new subscribers has fallen below the 5% mark for the first time, the revenue growth will be primarily driven by services to the existing subscriber base. The new revenue will be dominated by data access revenues for the next couple of years.

As has been obvious for some time, the device ecosystem has become a two horse race – iOS and Android. Apple and Samsung. Google’s acquisition of Motorola finally closed and everyone is watching as to what comes next. Amazon showed off its ambition with Kindle Fire and is now getting ready to launch a new set of devices in time for the holiday season. Apple launches its iPhone 5 with LTE and gives some more polish to iOS next month. Microsoft will start selling its Surface tablet in a matter of weeks. The only one left out of the launching musical chairs is RIM which has pushed out its launch into 2013. 

Samsung continued its march of being the undisputed unit leader in mobile device space. After displacing Nokia in Q1 2012, it continued to dominate in units shipped in Q2 2012. However, Apple dominates both the device revenues and more importantly just crushes the competition on device profits. It has only 6% of the global unit shipment share but over 70% profit share. In tablets, Apple completely dominates the landscape in both shipments and revenue. In fact, 97% of the profits in the tablet segment go to Apple with the remaining ecosystem fighting for the crumbs. Apple has the complete stronghold on the supply chain and has sucked out the oxygen from the OEM world.

Nokia’s Lumia launch in Q2 fizzled in the US and elsewhere. It will get another shot at glory and perhaps its last with the Windows 8 launch in Sept.

If we exclude the M2M subscriptions and just look at the human subscriptions, the smartphone penetration went past 50% for the first time in the US market. Smartphone sales continued at a brisk pace crossing the 70% mark (of the devices sold) in Q2 2012.

Verizon and AT&T maintained their top positions in the global rankings by mobile data revenues. A survey of the entire ecosystem shows that the US companies dominate the top 5 rankings of profit share. China Mobile leads the industry with Apple, Verizon, AT&T, and NTT DoCoMo completing the rankings.

Zuned Out

Apple launched iPod in 2001. During the early days, Microsoft ignored it until it realized it better start paying attention to the growing phenom. It asked its suppliers to build them a Microsoft iPod. One by one, they all failed. Depressed and frustrated, it took matters in its own hand and introduced Zune in 2006, full five years after the first iPod came into the market. By that time, Apple had already sold 66M units and still hadn’t hit its peak. As is customary, Microsoft took another few iterations to get it right. By the time a competitive product came out, it didn’t matter. The main reason was that the customers were Zuned Out. They had already made their choice, invested their time and money into a platform and it will take more than a crowbar to move them onto something new. Microsoft retired Zune in 2011

Fast forward to 2007. iPhone came out. Nokia, RIM, Microsoft and others dismissed it and more importantly failed to understand and acknowledge its impact. Their corporate schizophrenia is well documented. Microsoft wisely realized that it can’t just keep paring down the mothership OS for mobile and took time to rewrite it. The new OS was actually good and well designed, it was quite fresh. iOS and Android would do well to borrow some ideas from it to enhance the user experience. However, Microsoft’s partners by this time were more enamored with Android. So in Nokia, Microsoft found a partner who can help shine the light on its new shiny OS. By the time initial credible versions of the new windows OS started to ship, Apple had already shipped over 200M units of iPhone. By the time RIM ships devices with the new OS (if it gets to that point), Apple would have shipped over 300M units. Consumers have already invested their time and money into platforms and ecosystems. Will Microsoft, Nokia, and RIM get a second chance or will they be Zuned Out?

Then came the iPad that completely took Microsoft by surprise. It pioneered the concept a decade earlier but was completely outflanked by the wily Apple. Zune wasn’t significant to Microsoft’s core business. It had ignored mobile as well for the better part of the decade as it didn’t disturb the Office and Windows PC franchises. But tablets are different. Apple singlehandedly created a new category in 2010 and has dominated it ever since. It is altering the basic notion of computing. Enterprises are dumping their PCs and moving to iPad. We have seen that in our work as well. All of a sudden, there is a direct threat to Microsoft’s core business. This time the implications are very serious. It can no longer afford a misstep. So, instead of letting partners produce mediocre products that have no chance of success in the market, Microsoft is taking the matters in its own hands early on and produce something that on surface looks a pretty compelling product. If it can get the pricing right, it can make a dent and be a contender in the new computing landscape. It can use its products, distribution power, developer ecosystem, and the bank balance to alter the scales. But Apple has a big lead. By the time Surface comes out, Apple would have sold over 100M iPads. If Microsoft executes, maybe there is a chance to not get Zuned Out this time around. If it fails, the company itself might be Zuned Out in due course along with many of its longtime partners.

In the theory of market entry, fast follower is actually a smart strategy. Microsoft was a master at it. However the strategy has its limitations. Against an agile and ruthless competitor like Apple or Google, you better be a really fast follower (Samsung) else time starts to work against you. A slow follower strategy only works if you have something truly innovative (iPhone) or the incumbents are asleep at the switch (Xbox) or the business model is disruptive (Netflix). Also, the fast follower strategy is only sustainable when you are adept at anticipating competitor’s future chess plays.

Shared Data Plans

We have been advocating shared data plans to create more consumer demand for over two years. When I talked to CNBC earlier this year (Jan), I said that in all likelihood the family data plans will be introduced in the US market in 2012. I discussed this more with Bloomberg and USA Today and suggested that most likely Verizon will launch them first. Verizon and AT&T launched the shared data plans this summer with AT&T getting the benefit of launching it second. While it is a great start, to be truly effective, some of the fees need to be reduced or completely eliminated.

Operator’s Dilemma (And Opportunity): The Fourth Curve

While the European operators are feeling the heat from the OTT players (which is further compounded by an abysmal economy), the impact on the US operator revenues hasn’t been significant, yet. Last quarter we released our Mobile Future Forward Research 2012 Paper that took an in-depth look at the evolving landscape. The first of its kind study looks at the revenue curves over the course of the mobile history and discusses the need to invest in the fourth curve. The paper results were discussed in WSJ, The Economist, GigaOM, Seattle Times, and many other fine publications around the globe. The fourth curve will define the fate of many providers. Earlier this year, we discussed the topic in-depth in our Seattle and London forums and we will go even deeper into the subject at our annual brainstorm - Mobile Future Forward on Sept 10th with all major participants.

mCommerce > eCommerce: Mobile First to Mobile Only

In the last couple of years, the realization in the industry set in that mobile is going to reallydominate the world. Very quickly, we are at another pivot point wherein the mobile first doctrine is going to move to mobile only. It is not that the desktop world will disappear into oblivion. Far from it. But, the investments, strategy, and execution will be driven by mobile. As we said in our global research update earlier this year, in 3-5 years, with few exceptions, if a company is not doing majority of its digital business on mobile, it is going to be irrelevant. There are already several data points to support the theory. Leading apps and services like Facebook, Twitter, Pandora are already operating in the world where mobile is driving majority of their user engagement. Expedia, Fandango and others are seeing the early signs of migration into the mobile dominated world. Starting soon we will start to see businesses with mCommerce Revenues > eCommerce Revenues.

Postpaid Doldrums

The prepaid subscriber base exceeded 100M in the US for the first time. As postpaid growth sputters, prepaid is picking up the net-adds. So, the question emerges, where will the net-sub and net-revenue growth going to come from in the next few years. The smartphone penetration in the US is at 50% (excluding M2M), so the significant opportunities are in the upgrades and non-data to data conversion. Family data plans (see above) will help in bolstering data revenues as well. Multiple devices/consumer will increase the sub penetration which is at 110%.

Mobile Data Growth – The Gigabyte Generation

The overall data consumption in the US market in 2012 is expected to exceed 2000 Petabytes or 2 Exabytes. Since the advent of the iPhone five years ago, the US market has seen triple digit growth in mobile data consumption. In 2012, we expect the mobile data growth to be around 80%. This has largely been driven by the introduction of data tiers, the use of WiFi offload, more developer education, throttling in some instances, and some compression and offloading solutions. However, as LTE becomes more widespread in the US, we expect the traffic growth to pick up again.

Market Consolidation

Even though the regulators have indicated their distaste for big mergers, it hasn’t stopped the industry to play the M&A speculation parlor game. Except for a few impossible scenarios, all sorts of deals are being contemplated. The market economics is clearly crying out for more consolidations. The smaller M&As won’t move the needle and bigger M&A are not going to be on the table until we get into a new calendar year.

New Revenue

At the turn of the century, roughly 15% of the service provider revenue came from new subscribers. By the end of the year, we expect this will drop down to 3%. This means that the new revenue will have to come from a) converting non-data to data subs and b) launching new services in different verticals for the existing subs.

Connected Universe, Monetizing Opportunities

While 2011 was the year of figuring what the opportunities are in the new connected era, 2012 is starting to focus on how to monetize those opportunities. That will be the theme of our Mobile Future Forward Thought-leadership summit on Sept 10th. Almost all the vertical industries are benefiting from the connected devices and ubiquity of broadband networks – security, health, retail, utility, transportation, entertainment, and others. We will take a deep dive into the issues, the best case studies, the opportunities, and the players. We are assembling industries who’s who to help you figure out where the industry is headed next.

What to expect in the coming months?

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

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

Against this backdrop, the analysis of the Q2 2012 US wireless data market is:

Service Revenues

ARPU

Subscribers

Applications and Services

Handsets

Mobile Data Growth

Global Update

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

We will be discussing a number of issues raised in this report in our annual mobile executive thought-leadership summit - Mobile Future Forward on Sept 10th in Seattle. Confirmed speakers include: Abhi Ingle, VP, Advanced Solutions, AT&T; Antonio Benjamin, Global CTO, Citi; Brad Duea, SVP – Products, T-Mobile; Biju Nair, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer, Synchronoss; Bobby Morrison – President, Verizon; Carlos Domingo, President and CEO, Telefonica R&D; Dan Deeney, Partner, New Venture Partners; Dave Whalen, VP/GM, Intel; Ed Cantwell, SVP, West Wireless Health Institute; Erik Ekudden, Head of Strategy, Ericsson; Erik Moreno, EVP, Fox; Frank Meehan, Executive, Horizons Ventures; Glenn Lurie, President, AT&T Mobility; Gus Hunt, CTO, CIA; Hank Skorny, VP/GM, Intel; Houk Reed, VP, Tekelec; Jana Messerschmidt, VP, Twitter; Jeff Smith, CTO, Numerex; Kevin Fitchard, Senior Reporter, GigaOM; Kevin Packingham, SVP – Product Innovation, Samsung; Marianne Marck, VP – Engineering, Starbucks; Mark Anderson, CEO, Future in Review; Mark Young, VP – Mobile and Connected Devices, NBC Universal; Michael Bayle, SVP and GM, ESPN Mobile; Mike Woodward, President - Americas, HTC; Neville Ray, Chief Network Officer, T-Mobile; Nick Wingfield, Reporter, New York Times; Oke Okaro, Global Head of Mobile, Bloomberg; Renee James, SVP, Software and Services Group, Intel; Stephen Bye, CTO, Sprint; Stephen David, former CIO, Proctor & Gamble; Steve Elfman, President, Sprint; Todd Simpson, Chief Innovation Officer, Mozilla; Wim Sweldens, President, Alcatel-Lucent Wireless.

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

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

Mobile Future Forward – Early Bird expires tomorrow July 9, 2012

Posted by chetan in : Mobile Future Forward , add a comment

Greetings,

Hope all’s well and that you are enjoying summer. Seattle is finally seeing its share of sun this week.

We just finished off a  busy June with Mobile Breakfast Series events in Seattle, Atlanta, and London. Great discussions around OTT, Cloud, and Connected Devices with some of the leaders in the space. Check out the event recaps. We have more research coming out on the subject so stay tuned.

One thing is pretty clear – it is a great time to be a consumer. Choices abound. However, the key question in industry shifts is how the revenue will get distributed amongst the players and if any new money is going to come into the ecosystem. That will be the core of the discussion themes at our fall mobile executive summit – Mobile Future Forward on Sept 10th in Seattle and I am very pleased how the program is shaping up. We will provide regular updates as we continue to refine the program and announce more speakers. As you know, our programs are deep in content and high on participant caliber. Each year we strive to bring together some of the leading thinkers and doers from around the world to brainstorm the future of mobile. As we like to call it – it is a mobile boot camp with the brightest brains in mobile.

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

We are expecting a full house so grab your seats today. Early bird expires Tuesday – July 10th.

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

Confirmed Speakers

· Steve Elfman, President, Sprint

· Glenn Lurie, President, AT&T

· Wim Sweldens, President, Alcatel-Lucent Wireless

· Michael Bayle, SVP and GM, ESPN Mobile

· Martin Fichter, President, HTC

· Stephen Bye, CTO, Sprint

· Bobby Morrison, President, Verizon Wireless

· Erik Moreno, EVP, Fox

· Stephen David, former CIO, Proctor & Gamble

· Ed Cantwell, SVP, West Wireless Health Institute

· Jana Messerschmidt, VP, Twitter

· Dan Deeney, Partner, New Venture Partners

· Houck Reed, VP – Broadband Solutions, Tekelec

.. More to come

· Mung Ki Woo, Head of Mobile, Mastercard Worldwide

· Antonio Benjamin, Global CTO, Citi

· Biju Nair, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer, Synchronoss

· Hank Skorny, VP/GM, Intel

· Jack Kennedy, EVP, News Corp Digital Media

· Marianne Marck, VP – Engineering, Starbucks

· Tim Chang, Partner, Mayfield

· Erik Ekudden, Head of Technology Strategies, Ericsson

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

· Kevin Packingham, SVP – Product Innovation, Samsung

· Frank Meehan, Executive, Horizons Ventures

· Oke Okaro, Global Head of Mobile, Bloomberg

· Mark Anderson, CEO, SNS

Discussion Topics

· Looking back from Mobile 2020 – the last 10 years

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

· Will Privacy get in the way of mobile growth?

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

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

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

· When will Mobile Commerce eclipse Ecommerce? And How?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

· Emerging Markets, Emerging Opportunities

· Battle for the Home – Devices, Apps, Networks

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

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

Thanks.

Kind regards,

Chetan Sharma

A Conversation with Steve Elfman, President, Network Operations and Wholesale, Sprint Nextel June 26, 2012

Posted by chetan in : Mobile Future Forward , add a comment

This interview with Steve Elfman is excerpted from the 2011 Mobile Future Forward Book. We are delighted to have him join us for the 2012 Mobile Future Forward program.

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Running a multi-billion dollar operator business requires the best of operational experience and foresight. As the mobile business is becoming more data-centric, there is a significant emphasis on running a tight operation to manage the margins. Driving the operational efficiency is as important as revenue generation to help manage the margins. Steve Elfman, President, Network Operations and Wholesale, Sprint has a very keen eye on operations and how to make them better. He has done that repeatedly throughout his illustrious career. To gain a better understanding of how operators think about operations and how the ecosystem should think about the same while coming up with relevant solutions and products, Mobile Future Forward (MFF) sat down with Steve to gain some insights on what drives operational efficiency.

MFF: When you get into a new situation, what’s the process you follow to figure out the opportunities for operational efficiency? Is it the process or the technology decisions that drive your thinking?

SE: It is actually yes on both counts and then a third. The first thing I look at is the overall financial picture of the company, the really high cost items of the company. Inventory is a good example. How much are we spending on inventory? Additional things to take a look at are - what are the big CAPEX and OPEX items, the network, the IT organization, building solutions, the subsidy, the logistics, and the distribution. So, start with the financials.

In the financials, I look at the two key metrics – the quality and the cycle time (and waste etc.) and then go into a deep dive and quickly determine where you can get operational efficiency with processes and change those. Then you jump to technologies to make sure we got the most efficient technology to not only automate but also to figure out if we are getting the cost down by using the technology. It is equally important to assess if it is impacting the go to market strategy.

The third thing I get into is the ecosystem and the partnerships like outsourcing and where we can work with the domain experts and partners to bring in the efficiency, the time to market advantage, and also minimize the cost out of the equation.

Finally, it is important to establish the benchmarks so you can gauge the progress.

So, that’s the kind of the process I go through.

MFF: Can you give us some examples in each of these categories?

SE: Sure. When I got here, I looked at the whole network operations. Our network cost and the margins were not in sync compared to of our competitors and when I looked deeper, it was easy to explain – we had more labor costs because we had lot more cell sites and switches per subscriber and then we looked at investments we have been making in the processes and in the technology. It drove us to look at the outsourcing opportunities to improve efficiency and also to automate a bunch of things. And we found a partner in Ericsson which has been operating networks in various parts of the world. This allowed us to focus on customer service while Ericsson helped us with automation and improving the processes, in the use of best in class technology so we didn’t have to invest in best practices.

Second example - in pursuing the Network Vision, we said that in addition to the operational efficiencies, we need to leapfrog our competition and go to the next generation technology. That’s why we went to multi-mode technology which is lower cost. Like many, we saw the data tsunami coming and we needed flexibility and a lower per unit cost.

MFF: How has the focus on operational efficiency changed as we are migrating from the voice world to a data-centric universe?

SE: Indeed it has changed and the reason is quite obvious. Data uses greater bandwidth, especially, rich media, and the usage characteristics are so different than voice. The pricing equation is challenging as we try to be efficient and at the same time give customers what they want, where they want it. The increasing demand of data has driven us to be more operationally efficient. Additionally, the go-to-market strategy has to be different as well.

MFF: Do you see the segments of postpaid, prepaid, connected devices differently? Since their cost and the revenue structures are different, does it mean that the strategy for operations is different as well?

SE: Yes there is but you have to look at not just the operational efficiency and here is why. Connected devices space is very nascent and immature and I will call that the segment is in the early part of the S curve and so you are making the investments, some will work out and will not. But you are trying to have other businesses fund the investment just like a new business.

In terms of prepaid and postpaid, both are fairly mature businesses, prepaid a bit less so. So, the cost structures are mature as well. The prepaid business can ride on top of the postpaid business since the basic components are the same – operational efficiency in the network, many of the same underlying IT systems, same distribution and logistics, warehousing etc. The prepaid segment has low lifetime value (LTV), so you need to get all the costs out to make it an operationally efficient business.

MFF: In the mobile world today, things are changing so fast as new devices are coming onto the market and the consumption itself is changing dramatically, how do you go about planning for 2-5 years out when the forecasts get exceeded on a continuous basis?

SE: I think you hit the nail. Forecasts by their nature are wrong. The only way you can be effective is by getting more discipline in that forecast and it doesn’t mean that it has to be right the first time but you are forecasting more regularly as you get more data and information about how things are selling, what the usage patterns are by subscriber, media, and data type. So, you are updating the forecasts more frequently, almost like an MRP-type system.

At the start of the year, you start with what devices you are going to put out, what kind of promotions, what capabilities, what applications, and do the micro segmentation of the customers to figure out the best strategy. Additionally, you are spending lot of time with network gear providers and device OEMs and other companies in the ecosystem to look at offload and optimization strategies more so than it used to be in the voice centric world. We also work closely with the major content providers to make sure that the multimedia content is optimized for the network. So, tighter planning, more data analysis, and finally look at the revenue side as well and try to differentiate the services and how you price services and products.

MFF: From managing the competitiveness in the market, does it come down to maximizing the margins per bit? What metrics do you keep an eye on that tells you how the business is doing?

SE: I think there can be a gazillion metrics but at the end of the day, it is the EBITDA. You have to make sure that you are delivering on that metric and it drives a whole bunch of behaviors whether it is subsidy, operational cost, negotiating deals, offload, roaming, access costs, etc. The EBITDA is a central measurement, week over week. Others are revenue, net-adds, churn, gross adds - day over day because then you take your precious EBITDA to invest so that you keep more customers and focus on higher value customers. It helps with pricing and with competitiveness. Managing your unit cost per GB is important in driving it down to the lowest possible cost.

Every day in this industry there is something going on which nullifies what you thought was true yesterday and I will give you an example. We went into the year not expecting that AT&T will put out a $49 iPhone. The day it came out – big surprise from the competitor – looks irrational, how do we respond to that. For a company like ours, cash flow and EBITDA are critically important. Over the last 3 years, we have managed the cash very well.

MFF: Operators obviously understand how the business is run. Do you think the ecosystem understands how the operator business is run and what metrics are important so they can better design solutions for you?

SE: No, I don’t think so. However, where we are in sync are with the larger vendors as you spend a tremendous amount of time with them, spend lot of money with them, so you tend to go through the underlying metrics in great detail with them. At the smaller and the mid-level, historically, we have spent less time since we spend less. And what we have tried to do is to recognize that a great deal of innovation comes from outside the operator. It is our job to seek out and support these innovators to help us out.

We recognize that by being open, our partners can come up with solutions as they are nimble. There has been a mismatch in the past but it is getting better. We are interdependent on their success. Traditionally, the culture in operators has been more of a supplier/customer relationship vs. a true partnership and I have tried to shift that dramatically here at Sprint.

MFF: As you look towards the next three years, is there going to be any fundamental shift in strategy?

SE: The time is upon us when making money from other than subscribers is essential. Over the course of the next three years – mobile advertising, mobile commerce, VAS, where operator can play a key role, can help us make a lot of money as long as they are not greedy.

MFF: Does the operator model shift to empowerment and enablement?

SE: Yes, we should bring the assets we have to the table, to the developers and to the ecosystem - things like the network, the back office, and the distribution and show that the ecosystem can generate revenues for everyone. This helps in building new revenue streams and share fairly with our partners while enriching the customer experience.

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

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

Greetings,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Confirmed Speakers

· Steve Elfman, President, Sprint

· Glenn Lurie, President, AT&T

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

· Wim Sweldens, President, Alcatel-Lucent Wireless

· Michael Bayle, SVP and GM, ESPN Mobile

· Martin Fichter, President, HTC

· Stephen Bye, CTO, Sprint

· Bobby Morrison, President, Verizon Wireless

· Erik Moreno, EVP, Fox

· Stephen David, former CIO, Procter & Gamble

· Ed Cantwell, SVP, West Wireless Health Institute

· Jana Messerschmidt, VP, Twitter

.. More to come

· Mung Ki Woo, Head of Mobile, Mastercard Worldwide

· Antonio Benjamin, Global CTO, Citi

· Biju Nair, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer, Synchronoss

· Hank Skorny, VP/GM, Intel

· Jack Kennedy, EVP, News Corp Digital Media

· Marianne Marck, VP – Engineering, Starbucks

· Tim Chang, Partner, Mayfield

· Vish Nandlall, CTO and EVP, Ericsson

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

· Kevin Packingham, SVP – Product Innovation, Samsung

· Frank Meehan, Executive, Horizons Ventures

· Oke Okaro, Global Head of Mobile, Bloomberg

Discussion Topics

· Looking back from Mobile 2020 – the last 10 years

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

· Will Privacy get in the way of mobile growth?

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

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

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

· When will Mobile Commerce eclipse Ecommerce? And How?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

· Emerging Markets, Emerging Opportunities

· Battle for the Home – Devices, Apps, Networks

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

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

Thanks.

Kind regards,

Chetan Sharma

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Highlights from the discussion below:

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

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

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

Operators and OTT - The Way Forward - London

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

Announcing Mobile Future Forward 2012 June 13, 2012

Posted by chetan in : 4G, AORTA, Connected Devices, Mobile Applications, Mobile Future Forward, Mobile Operators, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

Greetings,

I hope you are enjoying the advent of summer.

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

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

Renee James, Senior Vice President of Software and Services at Intel will be giving an opening keynote. Renee is leading the charge that is making Intel a software powerhouse. It will be great to get her perspective how the trends are shaping up-and-down the innovation stack.

Dr. Vish Nandlall, CTO of Ericsson will be leading a fascinating panel discussion with some terrific industry leaders – Mobile in 2020: the last 10 years. I have had a chance to interact with him in the past and he will be a great person to help us visualize the back from the future journey.

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

Confirmed Speakers

· Steve Elfman, President, Sprint

· Glenn Lurie, President, AT&T

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

· Wim Sweldens, President, Alcatel-Lucent Wireless

· Michael Bayle, SVP and GM, ESPN Mobile

· Martin Fichter, President, HTC

· Stephen Bye, CTO, Sprint

· Bobby Morrison, President, Verizon Wireless

· Stephen David, former CIO, Proctor & Gamble

.. More to come

· Mung Ki Woo, Head of Mobile, Mastercard Worldwide

· Biju Nair, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer, Synchronoss

· Hank Skorny, VP/GM, Intel

· Jack Kennedy, EVP, News Corp Digital Media

· Marianne Marck, VP – Engineering, Starbucks

· Tim Chang, Partner, Mayfield

· Vish Nandlall, CTO and EVP, Ericsson

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

· Kevin Packingham, SVP – Product Innovation, Samsung

Topic Discussions

· Looking back from Mobile 2020 – the last 10 years

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

· Will Privacy get in the way of mobile growth?

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

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

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

· When will Mobile Commerce eclipse Ecommerce? And How?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

· Emerging Markets, Emerging Opportunities

· Battle for the Home – Devices, Apps, Networks

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

I hope you will join us in what is shaping up to be an exceptional gathering of the mobile minds. Registration is open now. Early bird will expire June 22nd.

Thanks.

Kind regards,

Chetan Sharma

Mobile Breakfast Series Recap – Operators/OTT – The Way Forward June 8, 2012

Posted by chetan in : AORTA, Applications, Carnival of Mobilists, Connected Devices, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Breakfast Series, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Future Forward, OTT, US Wireless Market, Unified Messaging, VoIP, Worldwide Wireless Market , 4 comments

June is the Mobile Breakfast Series Month with 3 programs planned in 3 cities across 2 continents. We kicked things off with the first one earlier today in Seattle. The topic of discussion was Operators and OTT – The Way Forward.

We also announced our fall program of Mobile Future Forward. More about that later.

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

The topic of our discussion was Operators and OTT or Over the Top. These are services like Skype, Youtube, Amazon video, HBO, etc. things that go over the network. I wanted to broaden the discussion to another acronym – VAS or value added services – both for the consumer segment and the enterprise segment. These will be simple things like address backup or CRM applications to more sophisticated supply chain management, in-store location targeting, advertising etc. To discuss this we have an absolutely brilliant panel representing various parts of the value chain.

RealNetworks has been the Kevin Bacon of startups in Seattle. Thanks to the people Rob Glaser hired, RN has done a better job at spawning up new ideas that your bigger cousins in town. Rob is well known for his pioneering work in giving Internet its voice (in the words of Kara Swisher in the 1998 article for WSJ). But lately, Rob has been busy with Sidecar – a next generation communication app that does more things than messaging and voice. If you haven’t tried, please do so.

Mary Jesse is one of the most distinguished engineers in WA State going back from the McCaw days, VP of Eng at AT&T, CTO of RadioFrame and now CoFounder and CEO of an enterprise communications company called Ivytalk. Again, if you haven’t tried it out, please do so.

Michael Shim was with Yahoo before Groupon and Yahoo was one of the true pioneers in the mobile space and now at Groupon he is seeing the new opportunities on the VAS, payments, and commerce. It will be great to get his view of how Groupon thinks about the space.

Have you tried T-Mobile’s Bobsled? Well, Alex Samano is the man and energy behind this service and T-Mobile is one of the few operators globally who are taking this OTT opportunity head-on. At TMO, he has been involved some really interesting initiatives like @home and wifi calling.

Last but not the least, Abhi Ingle from AT&T who heads up the mobile enterprise business. The industry has been talking about enterprise mobility for ages but his team generates more revenue than majority of the industry players combined. Did you know that AT&T is one of the biggest app developer on the planet? I bet you didn’t know that.

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

Some highlights from the discussion:

Our next breakfast event is in Atlanta on Connected Devices on June 22nd. Then we revisit the Operator/OTT discussion again from the European point of view in London on June 29th. Tell your colleagues and friends about it. They will thank you for that.

New Research: US Mobile Data Market Update Q1 2012 May 21, 2012

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, Connected Devices, Infrastructure, Mobile Breakfast Series, Mobile Cloud Computing, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Future Forward, US Wireless Market, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

US Mobile Data Market Update Q1 2012

http://www.chetansharma.com/USmarketupdateQ12012.htm

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Summary

The US mobile data market grew 6% Q/Q and 21% Y/Y to reach $18.7B in Q1 2012. Data is now over 40% of the US mobile industry service revenue. For the year 2012, we are forecasting that mobile data revenues in the US market will reach $80 billion.

For the first time in the history of the industry, the US operators had a net decline in postpaid subs. The top 7 operators lost a combined 52K postpaid subs. In overall net-adds, Sprint bested both of its bigger rivals for the first time since Q1 2002. That was exactly a decade ago when Cingular and Nextel brands were still around, before Google IPO and before Zuckerberg enrolled into Harvard. In fact, Sprint is the only US operator that has added more than 1 million subs every quarter since Q4 2010. However, most of these net-adds are coming from prepaid and wholesale segments. If we look at the net-adds over the last 4 quarters, AT&T comes out on top by a distance. In terms of postpaid net-adds only, Verizon is the clear leader during the same time period.

In terms of Y/Y growth, Connected Devices segment grew 23%, Prepaid 15%, Wholesale 10%, and Postpaid 1%. AT&T, Sprint, Sprint, and Verizon are number one respectively in these categories.

One-third of US consumers don’t use landline phones. The wireless only US population went past 100M subs in Q1 2012. Mobile will continue to increase its share of the household IT budget and thus improving the overall revenue picture. However, there will be fierce battle for the prized postpaid subs that have been slowly migrating to prepaid as a result of the economic doldrums. It is quite possible, they will come back but predicting the reverse migration is tough.

Q1 2012 will also be remembered for Samsung’s ascend to the top of the hill ending Nokia’s 14 year run. In terms of unit sales, it dominates the overall unit shipments and also the more lucrative smartphone segment. However, Apple dominates both the device revenues and more importantly just crushes the competition on device profits. It has only 8% of the global unit shipment share but over 70% profit share.

Apple has the complete stronghold on the supply chain and has sucked out the oxygen from the OEM world. Samsung for its part has done a credible job at keeping pace and in being competitive. As expected, the Chinese OEMs – ZTE and Huawei (and some new ones that you will hear about in the next few quarters) are coming on strong from the bottom. This means, the players caught in the middle face perilous times.

AT&T edged past NTT DoCoMo to become number two in global mobile data revenues rankings for the first time. Now top positions in the global rankings are occupied by the US operators.

Smartphone sales continued at a brisk pace accounting for almost 70% of the devices sold in Q1 2012.

Operator and OTT – The way forward

We are at a critical juncture of the industry evolution. The OTT phenomenon is shifting the tectonic plates at a rapid pace. What seemed like a minor irritant only a few quarters back is become a nuisance virus that is eating away the core. Some operators have gone into panic mode while others have stepped back, assessed the situation, embraced it, and will try to exploit the opportunity. The truth of the matter is that the two biggest apps – voice and messaging didn’t really evolve a period of two decades. When the last big invention was interoperability and that too a decade ago, you know things are ripe for disruption. Thanks to the availability of always-on IP networks, new and nimble players are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. It is not that some of these concepts haven’t been around for a while. RCS has been around for the last 5 years and this year there has been some tangible progress. However, while the world waits for interop and wide availability, startups can offer similar and in most cases, better services now. They can iterate rapidly and reach scale at much faster pace. We are in software-defined world after all. Smarter operators are launching their own OTT services while nodding at the standards implementations.

It is such a critical topic for the industry that we are devoting two Mobile Breakfast Series events to this topic. The first in Seattle on June 7th with AT&T, T-Mobile, Groupon, Ivycorp, and Sidecar and the second in London on June 29th with Telefonica, Orange, Rebtel, and Horizons Ventures. We will also be delving deep into the subject at our annual mobile brainstorming summit – Mobile Future Forward on Sept 10th in Seattle.

Mobile First to Mobile Only

Couple of years, the realization in the industry set in that mobile is going to really dominate the world. Senior executives like Eric Schmidt at Google started to preach the gospel. Very quickly, we are at another pivot point wherein the mobile first doctrine is going to move to mobile only. It is not that the desktop world will disappear into oblivion. Far from it. But, the investments, strategy, and execution will be driven by mobile. As we said in our global research update last month, in 3-5 years, with few exceptions, if a company is not doing majority of its digital business on mobile, it is going to be irrelevant. There are already several data points to support the theory. Leading apps and services like Facebook, Twitter, Pandora are already operating in the world where mobile is driving majority of their user engagement. Expedia, Fandango and others are seeing the early signs of migration into the mobile dominated world.

Postpaid Doldrums

For the first time in the history of the industry, the US operators had a net decline in postpaid subs. This is because of the shift to prepaid in recent times as well as the increased competition for the last few potential postpaid subs. So, the question emerges, where will the net-sub and net-revenue growth going to come from in the next few years. The smartphone penetration in the US was at 43% as of Q1 2012 so the significant opportunities are in the upgrades and non-data to data conversion. Family data plans (see below) will help in bolstering data revenues as well. Multiple devices/consumer will increase the sub penetration which is at 110%.

Family data plans

We have been big advocates of family data plans for the last 2 years and they are finally coming to the US market in the next few months if not weeks. Like gravity, it’s inevitable. Consumers want simplicity and common sense. Family data plans doesn’t necessarily mean that all family members will be forced onto a single data plan but rather the consumers given the opportunity to combine data usage under the same umbrella if they wanted to. If all in the family are heavy data users, initially, some of the data tiers might not make sense but for the vast majority, there are always going to be devices or family members who don’t need a separate full-fledged data usage plan.

When I talked to CNBC earlier this year (Jan), I said that there is a 90%+ probability that the family data plans will be introduced in the US market in 2012. I discussed this more with Bloomberg andUSA Today last week. Verizon and AT&T have been preparing the media and the consumers for this eventuality. Once one operator opens the door, expect rest to follow. Our Atlanta Mobile Breakfast Series will touch upon this topic during the discussion on Connected Devices, the Cloud, and the Consumer (with AT&T, Synchronoss, and CNN).

Mobile Data Growth – The Gigabyte Generation

The smartphone data consumption at some operators in the US is averaging close to 800 MB/mo. As we move into the 1GB range along with the family data plans getting introduced shortly, you can expect the data tiers to get bigger both in GBs and $. Mobile data traffic growth continued unabated doubling again for the 8th straight year. We expect the mobile consumption to double again in 2012. Data now constitutes over 85% of the mobile traffic in the US. As new devices and new network technology roll-outs continued in 2012, the data traffic will grow at the expected pace. The signaling traffic is growing at even a faster pace, 3 times in some cases. Stay tuned for our research paper in the Yottabyte paper series on the topic later this year.

Platform wars

Now that Google’s Motorola deal is approved in China and Facebook’s stellar IPO is behind us, we are going to witness a contentious platform battle between the fab five. Google is preparing to get deeper into handset business while Amazon and Facebook are tinkering with their own handsets. Microsoft is banking on the Lumia success and the release of Windows 8 and its impact on the ecosystem will be closely monitored. Samsung is putting some resources behind Tizen to hedge its bets in case things go south with its current partnerships. The platform narrative is still being defined by Apple which has the commanding mindshare of the developers, operators, and the profits. Follow the money and the puzzle unravels in front of your eyes.

Mobile Patents Landscape

2011 was the most active year for mobile patents in terms of disputes. All the major players were active in filing and protecting their turf for the future battles. IBM topped the industry in the most number of mobile patents granted in 2011 in the US followed by Samsung and Microsoft. The rest of the top 10 in order included Sony, Qualcomm, LG, Ericsson, Panasonic, Broadcom and RIM. Of the major players, Nokia occupied #12, Intel #13, Apple #16, Motorola #21, and Google #23 spot in the top 50 ranking. Amongst the mobile operators, Sprint was the leader with 323 patents granted in 2011. We have more research coming out later in the year that shows the relative patent strength of the various mobile players.

Market Consolidation

The AT&T-T-Mobile merger might not have gone through but that doesn’t stop industry to play the M&A speculation parlor game. Except for a few impossible scenarios, all sorts of deals are being contemplated. The market economics is clearly crying out for more consolidations. However, in an election year, there is an uneasy uncertainty that is gripping the market. The smaller M&As won’t move the needle and bigger M&A are not going to be on the table until we get into a new calendar year.

Connected Universe, Monetizing Opportunities

While 2011 was the year of figuring what the opportunities are in the new connected era, 2012 is starting to focus on how to monetize those opportunities. That will be the theme of our Mobile Future Forward Thought-leadership summit in Sept. More details to come. Almost all the vertical industries are benefiting from the connected devices and ubiquity of broadband networks – security, health, retail, utility, transportation, entertainment, and others. We will take a deep dive into the issues, the best case studies, the opportunities, and the players. We are assembling industries who’s who to help you figure out where the industry is headed next.

What to expect in the coming months?

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

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

Against this backdrop, the analysis of the Q1 2012 US wireless data market is:

Service Revenues

ARPU

Subscribers

Applications and Services

Handsets

Mobile Data Growth

Global Update

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

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

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

CTIA Wireless 2012 Recap May 14, 2012

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

CTIA Wireless 2012 Recap

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

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

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

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

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

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

Global Mobile Market Update

  

State of the Global Mobile Union - 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  1. Total Global Subscriptions to exceed 7 Billion in early 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Over 1.5 Billion broadband connections by 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  1. Several multi-billion dollar opportunity segments are emerging

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

  1. Mobile Ecosystem has become very dynamic and unpredictable

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

  1. Mobile Operator Revenue is under pressure from OTT Players

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

  1. OTT players forcing operators to up their game

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Big Picture

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

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

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

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

Global Mobile Data Growth

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

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

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

Devices – Changing Landscape

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

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

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

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

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

Mobile VAS and OTT – The Big Picture

• The traditional operator revenue streams of

– Voice – declining and under threat from VoIP

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

– Access – rising but margins are shrinking fast

– VAS – declining in proportion to the growth of smartphones

• Operators are fighting back with

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

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

– Access – Tiering

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

Managing Mobile Data Traffic and Profits

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

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

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

Mobile Intellectual Property

• The IP tussles are playing out as expected

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mobile Competitive Dynamics

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

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

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

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

Key Industry Micro-Milestones

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

What to expect in 2H 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• More IP scuffles before licensing settlements

• Consolidation of weaker players, more global M&A

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

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

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

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

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

Mobile Breakfast Series – How Mobile is Impacting Media, Commerce, and Consumer Behavior April 3, 2012

Posted by chetan in : AORTA, Connected Devices, Mobile Breakfast Series, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Future Forward, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

We entered our 4th year of running Mobile Breakfast Series and hosted 2012’s first Mobile Breakfast Series on March 28th. The topic of discussion was “How Mobile is Impacting Media, Commerce, and Consumer Behavior.”

First of all my thanks to our series partner: OpenMarket and Synchronoss Technologies. Both of them have been great partner to this series and I very much appreciate their support.

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Before I get into the details of the panel discussion, a few announcements about the upcoming events. We are planning on hosting MBS events in Atlanta and London this summer and need your assistance in getting the word out. On June 22nd, we will be in Atlanta to host a fireside chat with David Christopher, CMO, AT&T Mobility. The following week, we will be in London and in partnership with O2 UK, we will have some great discussion about the future of the Operator/OTT tussle in the ecosystem.

Our fall summit – Mobile Future Forward is scheduled for Sept 10th later this year and we are making good progress in setting up the agenda and the topics of discussion, already have some terrific speakers lined up. The theme is to connected universe, monetizing opportunities. We will open up the registration late April, so, keep an eye for that.

We released our yearly update on the US market earlier this month and you might have noted that 40% of the service revenues are now coming from mobile data. In Japan, this figure is getting close to 60%.

If you look at the consumer IT spend – mobile now occupies 50% of that budget and it is increasing. More than 35% households in the US are mobile only. More than 90% of the devices sold last quarter in the US were smartphones. Mobile influences 30-50% of our commerce transactions. In 2009, ESPN noted that their mobile web traffic is exceeding desktop traffic, now most brands have noted that they are already there or within the next 12-18 months mobile will be the majority traffic owner.

The impact of mobile is even more profound in developing countries. The first billion mobile subs took 250 months, the last billion took only 15 months to 6 billion and we will reach 7 billion in 12 months. Mpesa, kenya’s mobile payment now drives 20% of the country’s GDP. In Bhutan, where I spent some last quarter, mobile is the only way to deliver health care to remote areas. Earlier this month, China surpassed a billion subscribers. The opportunities are literally endless. In 2002, I had the good fortune of writing a book with then CTO of NTT DoCoMo, Dr. Yasuhisa Nakamura and he used to say – mobile networks need become omnipresent like air – clearly he didn’t have to pay for roaming data charges. Mark Weiser, from XEROX PARC, one of my heroes, considered the godfather of pervasive computing who first articulated the concept of everywhere, anytime computing back in the eighties and early nineties would have been proud to see the progress we have made.

Mobile is disrupting many industries – two of the most prominent being media and commerce and it is all driven by how consumers perceive the value of mobility, how they interact with content and devices, and how their consumer behavior is shaped over time. To discuss all of that, we had a great panel.

Michael Bayle, Senior Vice President and General Manager, ESPN Mobile. Michael Bayle is Senior Vice President and General Manager of ESPN Mobile. A former Yahoo! and Microsoft executive, Bayle develops and manages all aspects of ESPN’s mobile strategy and execution, including content production, programming and publishing on every ESPN Mobile platform.  He reports to John Kosner, Senior Vice President and General Manager of ESPN Digital and Print Media. Before ESPN, he did stints at Amobee, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

Len Jordan, Managing Director, Madrona. Len joined Madrona in January 2010 and is actively pursuing opportunities to lead new investments.  He currently serves on the boards of Cedexis, MaxPoint Interactive, and Zapd on behalf of Madrona. Len has served on the boards of ten early-stage companies and on behalf of Frazier Technology Ventures currently serves on the boards of Control4, DSIQ, Medio, and Wetpaint. Prior to joining Frazier Technology Ventures as a General Partner in 2004 Len spent 16 years in the software industry.  He most recently served as a senior vice president at RealNetworks.

Megan Tweed, VP, Media, Razorfish. Megan brings bleeding-edge media strategy and planning innovation to clients like Best Buy, Weight Watchers, and Nike. She is a leading agency and industry voice on the benefits of holistic, platform-agnostic planning and measurement across all viable platforms. Before Razorfish, Megan spent time at Carat and UniversalMcCann working on key global accounts.

Vik Pavate, VP of Business Development, Kovio. Vikram Pavate joined Kovio in 2002 with extensive experience in business development, product management and strategic planning. As vice president of business development, he is responsible for Kovio’s corporate strategy, business development, product management and marketing, OEM relationships and strategic joint development and technology alliances.

We touched upon a range of topics, players, issues, and opportunities. Below is the summary of the discussion:

Always, great to moderate a panel with terrific speakers. MBS audience is top-notch as well. Great questions and follow-up. That’s why it is so much fun putting these together. The next MBS event in Seattle will be on June 7th. Hope to see you there.

Until then, do good work and keep in touch.

thanks

Chetan

Bonus: Some ESPN stats that will rattle your mind

ESPN Mobile enjoyed a record-setting month in March, with new highs for mobile web and app usage, as well as video content and alerts.  ESPN mobile web and apps served an average minute audience of 103,000 in March, with an average of 5.1 million daily unique visitors (an increase of 22 percent over March 2011) and 3.1 billion total minutes for the month. ESPN apps in March had 3.6 million average daily uniques (up 125 percent over March 2011) and 1.5 billion minutes (up from 595 million in March 2011).

ESPN Mobile delivered 45 million video starts in March, including 24.6 million from mobile web and 19 million from the ESPN ScoreCenter handset and table apps, both record highs for a single month.  In addition, ESPN delivered 1.5 billion alerts in March, also a record high for any month.

(Source: ESPN)

US Wireless Market Update Q4 2011 and 2011 March 19, 2012

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, ARPU, Applications, BRIC, China, Connected Devices, Indian Wireless Market, LTE, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Breakfast Series, Mobile Cloud Computing, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Future Forward, Mobile Payments, Mobile Search, Mobile Wallet, Networks, Patent Strategy, Smart Phones, US Wireless Market, Wi-Fi, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , 1 comment so far

US Wireless Market Update Q4 2011 and 2011

 

http://www.chetansharma.com/USmarketupdate2011.htm

Summary

The US market generated $67 billion in mobile data revenues in 2011 accounting for 39% of the overall revenues for the country. The mobile data market grew 4% Q/Q and 19% Y/Y to reach $18.6B for the quarter. For the year 2012, we are forecasting that mobile data revenues in the US market will reach $80 billion.

The US market accounts for 5% of the subscriber base but 17% of the global service revenues and 21% of the global mobile data revenues. It also accounts for 40% for the global smartphone sales.

If the Martians landed on earth in early 2012, they will conclude the following: there are only 3 things certain on earth – death, taxes, and the direction of Apple’s stock price. Apple had a monster quarter with record sales of iPhone and iPad not only in the US but also around the world. Apple sold over 93M smartphones outpacing its nearest rival Samsung by a good distance. Its share of the profits is more than rest of the OEMs combined. Its stratospheric rise is legendary by any measure. Today Apple eclipsed the combined market cap of Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Think about that for a minute. In 6-12 months, you could probably add Facebook to the equation as well. The question on rivals’ mind is when will Apple stop defying gravity. Until then, better be a fast follower.

Smartphones continued to be sold at a brisk pace accounting for 65% of the devices sold in Q4 2011. US Operators are averaging 80% of their postpaid sales as smartphones with Android dominating though iPhone leads in mindshare. The Obama administration formally placed featurephones on the endangered species list but either chamber is unlikely to pass any resolution to save it.

Nokia launched its Lumia series of devices with good acclaim however it remains to be seen if it will be able to win back the customers in big numbers in 2012.

The Post-PC Era

Ever since the iPad came into being, the chants of the post-pc mantra are getting louder. But what is it? Is it just the untethered devices? Isn’t iPad a person computer too? What about the smartphones? They have more horse power than my first few PCs combined. Is the personal computing morphing into something else or is there a clear delineation between the Mesozoic era and the new tomorrow? While we in the industry get obsessed by these minutiae, what do the real consumers think about it? Clearly, tablets are selling better than the PCs (as our previous research has shown) both in units as well as the revenue. But so did the laptops compared to the desktops.

So, does the miniaturization of a screen and improving computing power represents a big shift or is this just an evolution of personal computing. Consumers rarely think about what computing era they are in. Between the time they wake and go back to bed at night, there are a series of tasks they have to accomplish. The technology is their companion to accomplish them, from keeping calendars to creating corporate presentations to sending messages to watching TV for entertainment to socializing with family and friends.. the list seems endless. Often times, the time is too short. Technology finds a way to give the time back to us by reducing the distance between the tasks as well as compressing the duration.

As I have said before, nothing collapses time and distance like mobile. Tablets, particularly, iPad and the smartphones, if seen through the eyes of the year 2000 make us superhumans providing us capability to process several tasks in parallel. We can even direct the computing device to figure things out while we sleep. Computing is morphing into a true companion, a wily butler who just knows what’s needed next. Being untethered to a desk makes us more productive. Taking the computing evolution further – what if we can create a desktop environment wherever we are instead going to a desk. For my work setup, I have 4 or 5 screens running at the same time and it does help. It is hard to see tablets in their current incarnation competing with that task environment. However, it does allow us to collapse the desktop and take it with us.

Tablet+Network+Cloud is an enormously powerful value proposition. It should be noted that apps and services on the mobile platform are defining the desktop environment now.

For the enterprise worker, many of the day-to-day tasks don’t really need the real-estate of 3 big monitors; we can easily accomplish a lot with a smartphone or better yet the tablet. As such, we are seeing corporations de-investing in desktops and laptops and moving this investment into tablets, smartphones, apps and make their work force more nimble and competitive. This also means, apps that used to be written for Windows will be predominantly written on iOS and Android, at least for the near-term. Microsoft has a strong offering in 8 and the fact that it will work across the three screens gives it some chips to play in the new world. Whether we call it a post-pc era or the computing continuum doesn’t seem that relevant. What matters most is the set of tools that help us accomplish the tasks at hand on a daily basis. The shift is tectonic in nature, and it is creating winners and losers at an incredibly fast pace. However, my sense is that we are finally entering into the ambient computing era where the computing capability is all around us, something that Mark Weiser of Xerox PARC envisioned more than 20 years ago and something we imagined growing up with the original Star Trek.

We will be dealing with multiple connected devices which share a common identity, cloud, media, security layer, and most importantly the apps and services. The traditional PC won’t disappear but our reliance on one single machine for creation or consumption will continue to dissipate. We will have scores of radios around us, multiple objects that can think and communicate from cereal boxes to security alarms; from windows to fabric shirts; from tables to automobiles; it feels more like the connected era - where objects with brains and energy are connected to create an unprecedented universe of intelligence and productivity. This will indeed impact purchasing behavior and the commerce flow. The social and computing interactions are more intimate, have more purpose, and are available everywhere. The work-life boundaries only exist in one’s mind. A business can be started with an app on a smartphone, anywhere serving to any consumer on the planet. The impact on productivity, the shrinking human capital needed for a set of tasks, corporate and nation’s competitiveness is significant.

In many developing nations, the PC era never arrived. They jumped right into the mobile computing era. They have always lived in the post-PC era. The implications are profound.

More than anything else, the old guard is having a tough time adjusting to the new computing paradigm. HP, Dell, and others have tried but failed thus far to either launch a decent tablet or a smartphone. While Apple invented the new computing paradigm only Samsung has been able to stand up as a worthy rival. The success of a vertically integrated success strategy has seduced Microsoft and Google to the doorstep of a vertical strategy. Will they cross the chasm remains to be seen. Much depends on how Nokia performs for Microsoft and how long can Android juggernaut keeps growing for Google. Then, of course, there are Amazon and Facebook who are attacking the market from a services angle. With a strong entry of the likes of Huawei and ZTE, players caught in the middle are struggling for a viable long-term path to success.

The engagement model with the computing resources is undergoing significant evolution as well. Keyboard and mouse seem relics of a bygone era. We are falling in love with gesture computing combined with a myriad of input and intelligence techniques. Data processing at the speed of light is the new competitive advantage at all computing layers.

In every shift, winners and losers are created. The ones who fail to recognize and adapt become the relic of the historical past duly replaced by the new creators and implementers. If we look at the US household IT spend, over 50% of that spend now goes to mobile. The life time value will increase for players who can tie experiences together across multiple screens in a seamless fashion. This will enable them to not only capture the device revenue but also the commerce and services revenue built on top of it.

The battle for the consumer wallet is being fought on Apple’s turf; it is the one driving the industry narrative and the agenda for its competitors and the ecosystem at large. Am pretty sure we will stop using computer to define computing. Interesting times indeed.

Competition

In any other year, the AT&T and T-Mobile merger would have likely gone through. The interconnection of policy, politics, and private enterprise was on vivid display last year. The failure of the merger forced Deutsche Telekom to resort to the only second viable option - to take the plunge and invest in the US market. Whether 4 competitors can survive 3 years from now is still questionable. Given that DOJ and FCC have set the precedent, the only way a major M&A can take place in the US service provider segment in the near term is if one of the tier 2 operators falters Q/Q. We still believe in our thesis as outlined in our research paper “Competition and the Evolution of Mobile Markets” last year that the US market can’t support 4 large operators and we are likely to see further M&A activity in the sector before too long.

Mobile Data Growth – The Gigabyte Generation

Mobile data traffic growth continued unabated doubling again for the 8th straight year. We expect the mobile consumption to double again in 2012. Data now constitutes over 85% of the mobile traffic in the US. Approximately 30% of the smartphone users average more than 1GB/mo. As new devices and new network technology roll-out keep pace in 2012, the data traffic will grow at the expected pace. The signaling traffic is expected to grow in even faster. Stay tuned for our research paper in the Yottabyte series of papers on the topic later this year.

Mobile Patents Landscape

2011 was the most active year for mobile patents in terms of disputes. All the major players were active in filing and protecting their turf for the future battles. IBM topped the industry in the most number of mobile patents granted in 2011 in the US followed by Samsung and Microsoft. The rest of the top 10 in order included Sony, Qualcomm, LG, Ericsson, Panasonic, Broadcom and RIM. Of the major players, Nokia occupied #12, Intel #13, Apple #16, Motorola #21, and Google #23 spot in the top 50 ranking. Amongst the mobile operators, Sprint was the leader with 323 patents granted in 2011. We have more research coming out later in the year that shows the relative patent strength of the various mobile players.

Connected Universe, Monetizing Opportunities

While 2011 was the year of figuring what the opportunities are in the new connected era, 2012 is starting to focus on how to monetize those opportunities. That will be the theme of our Mobile Future Forward Thought-leadership summit in Sept. More details to come. Almost all the vertical industries are benefiting from the connected devices and ubiquity of broadband networks – security, health, retail, utility, transportation, entertainment, and others. We will take a deep dive into the issues, the best case studies, the opportunities, and the players.

What to expect in the coming months?

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

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

Against this backdrop, the analysis of the Q4 2011 and full year 2011 US wireless data market is:

Service Revenues

ARPU

Subscribers

Applications and Services

Handsets

Mobile Data Growth

Global Update

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

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

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

Mobile World Congress 2012 Recap March 6, 2012

Posted by chetan in : 3G, 4G, AORTA, Applications, Connected Devices, LTE, MWC, Mobile Cloud Computing, Mobile Commerce, Mobile Content, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Future Forward, Mobile Payments, Mobile World Congress, US Wireless Market, WiMax, Wireless Value Chain, Worldwide Wireless Market , add a comment

Mobile World Congress 2012 Recap

The mobile industry had its biggest industry show last week in Barcelona. Going by the attendee numbers, the global economy seems to have rebounded though riots on the streets indicated tough time for Spain ahead. While there weren’t any blockbuster announcements, there was plenty to chew on. LTE, Connected Devices, Mobile Commerce, Privacy, WiFi offload, small cells, platform wars, mobile money, RCS, Connected Home, NFC, Cloud, and HTML5 had their share of debates and discussions. This note summarizes my observations from the show.

China passes the 1B mark – As we noted in our research piece last month “A Tale of Two Mobile Markets – China and India,” China crossed the 1B subscription mark this past weekend (Economist did a piece based on our research as well). In the last ten years, China has become the 2nd largest economy in the world behind the US while India which crossed the 900M mark last month is edging past Japan to be the #3. Given that mobile will have a central role in the ICT evolution of global markets and economies, what happens in the mobile markets of China and India will influence rest of the world.

Convergence of three screens – One of the fascinating trend is the convergence of the desktop, tablets, and smartphones at the OS/Apps layer with Apple, Microsoft, and Google being the three major pillars. Each has its strength in a given segment though Apple has the most mindshare across all three. Microsoft dominates the desktop world with over 90% share, Apple dominates the tablet world with over 60% share and runs a close second to Google on the smartphone segment. As I mentioned to the New York Times, this has significant implications on commerce, distribution, and life time value of the customer.

Operators vs. OTT – Round 2 - Mobile World Congress Keynotes started with two of the most prominent mobile operators proclaiming that the industry has significant challenges in the form of OTT providers commoditizing their revenue streams without any significant investment of their own into the network. Both Franco Bernabe, Chairman and CEO of Telecom Italia and Li Yue, President of China Mobile painted a gloomy picture and how operators need to focus on fundamentals if they were to survive the ever growing pressure on the margins. Some like KPN and SMART are seeing deterioration of their business fundamentals. However, there are some good case studies of success as discussed in my GigaOM column. I also discussed the subject in my paper released last month “Mobile Internet 3.0: How Operators can become service innovators and drive profitability” A number of operators announced their support for Joyn – the face of RCS services. The Operator/OTT story will be one of the most fascinating ones to watch in the coming months.

Mobile payments and commerce – There is significant activity in the mobile payments space but activity shouldn’t be confused for progress. Number of announcements with actual product offerings or roadmap is limited. There are some interesting case studies that are emerging however, like the one in Czech Republic where operators are collaborating with the banks to lower the commission and share the proceeds. That’s the primary way the operator model is going to work. Financial guys have protected their turf very well. And now retailers are forming their union. There has been too much focus on NFC payments rather than NFC as a platform for doing other things besides payments. As I said to the New York Times, “It will take a long time.”

Mobile Cloud – The discussion of Mobile Cloud has moved to Smart Cloud. From devices to the network to the apps, all elements of the chain are looking for the cloud to drive efficiencies in cost and performance.

Mobile Security – Mobile Security has emerged as one of the key opportunity areas for the ecosystem. Given that mobile devices are multiplying like gremlins, it is time to reign in the security. Both consumers and enterprise customers will benefit from a safety net that can protect customers from loss of data, viruses, targeted attacks, and malware. You can expect a number of offerings in this space over the course of this year.

Intel is serious about Mobile – Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel said at the launch event that they are introducing mobile technology at twice the pace of Moore’s law and is a clear statement that Intel is serious about mobile. Intel announced Orange, Lava, ZTE, and Visa as their new partners (in addition to previously announced Motorola and Lenovo) for their mobile chipset platform (smartphones and tablets). While the industry watchers are waiting for one of the big shoe to drop (the likes of Samsung, HTC, Nokia), Intel is making steady progress and the devices are blazing fast especially for 1080p video. Partners are all looking for mass-market devices (read sub-$50 after subsidy) within the next 2-4 months.

Managing Signaling traffic – While the data capacity issues get discussed a lot, signaling traffic and the problems they cause don’t get the same treatment. However, it is very clear that management of signaling traffic will remain quite important. Many of the applications are atrocious when it comes to signaling efficiency for e.g. I saw one of the mapping apps at Procera’s booth which requested connection for every single tile on the map, every time the map was rendered, so one map view could generate over a dozen signaling requests. So far, a lot of attention has been on policy management of data traffic, we better start paying attention to policy management of signaling traffic.

LTE/WiFi – Infrastructure providers and operators are looking to tighten the bond between LTE and WiFi such that the traffic can be policy managed at a granular level by application type so that based on the real-time traffic conditions, traffic can be optimized and routed accordingly.  Alcatel-Lucent with its LightRadio technology and SK Telecom were some of the players demoing the concept.

Traffic Onloading – Most vendors and operators talk about traffic offloading, but Wim Sweldens, President of Alcatel-Lucent Wireless division had much to say about traffic onloading. Even at the show, WiFi offload was being discussed along with LTE in the same sentence. With traffic, operators are also offloading the customer, he said – exposing the customer to potential security problems and perhaps loss of revenue opportunities during that session. With Light Radio WiFi®, operators will be able to more intelligently onboard the customer to their network and provide the same level of service and security as they do with their cellular network. Wim suggested that this is a good marriage between the radio and the IP world to give the best to customer while preserving the value for the operators. My discussion with Wim in this GigaOM column has more details. I will have more research coming out on the subject later in the year.

GAMAF moves - While Eric Schmidt will argue Microsoft isn’t in the mix; the platform world in mobile revolves around the furious five – GAMAF. Each has their strengths and weaknesses. Amongst the five, Google had the biggest presence at the show while Apple and Amazon were just there to scout talent, deals, and competition. Amazon and Facebook lack an OS to go with their ambitions and are pinning their hopes on HTML5. Amazon has thus far used Google’s efforts to its advantage and done a better job in some areas. MWC12 was coming out party for Facebook Mobile. Microsoft is making steady progress with 8 and hoping that it will prove to be its lucky number.

Empire strikes back – Microsoft and Nokia have been making steady progress in their quest to regain market share that stands decimated by previous strategic errors. While it is going to take unforeseen amount of time to make up for the lost market value, Nokia’s product line looks good, operators seem to provide a helping hand in creating the third viable ecosystem. Microsoft has been scrambling to get Windows 8 ready for the market so it can launch tablets and tie the three screens together. Things finally are coming together. Though a number of things can still go wrong, the two work horses are moving in the right direction. However, the biggest question still is whether consumers will give them a chance or not?

Facebook – HTML5 R Us – Facebook has been a bit tentative in mobile over the last few years but is making a concerted effort in building its strategy around HTML5. It is also doing this by rallying partners from across the ecosystem. With its massive reach, it will be a significant player in mobile, commerce, and advertising.

Connected Home – One of my favorite MWC things to do is to visit the Connected Home to see how close we are getting to the reality of connected home. AT&T and other partners showcased some of their latest technologies in home automation and the remote monitoring and home automation platform is almost ready for prime time. AT&T expects the Digital Life platform to be available later this year.

Devices – There were a number of devices launched at the show. HTC got going first with HTC One. The most significant part of the announcement was the distribution deal with 140+ operators. They are going to have a good Q2. Sony, LG, ZTE, Huawei also announced their lineup. Nokia’s pureview stood out for me with its incredible new camera technology (even though it was built on Symbian). Apple, you can finish your Lytro acquisition now. Samsung feverishly pushed its Galaxy Note.

The Untouchables – With Apple launching its LTE iPad on March 7th, the non-Apple tablet market is pretty much frozen. While there were some new tablets launched at the show, an opportunity to change the game likely won’t occur until Microsoft comes out with 8 or Google springs in a surprise. Amazon will continue to sell Kindle Fire but it is hardly making a dent to Apple’s trajectory. Apple is so far ahead of its competitors in the top tier of this key emerging segment that you might as well classify the company as the untouchables.

HyperLocal on a Global Scale - Hyperlocal targeting has been around for some time, one can do polygon targeting meaning draw a polygon of the area where the advertiser wants to target the users. The advantage is that the ads are specific and more context-aware and hence the rate of engagement is higher. Advertisers get better leads and are quite useful for time sensitive campaigns. However, the capability is generally limited to certain regions or countries. Millennial Media extended their dev platform - mMedia allows developers and advertisers to do hyperlocal targeting on a global scale. 

Privacy – There was a lot of discussion on privacy. Everyone has an opinion but not necessarily a good solution. Everyone wants to be guardian of consumer data but don’t want to be held responsible for breaches. This pretty much means regulators are going to move in and it will be hard to predict the impact.

Retailers in mobile – Some of the retailers seem frozen in Mesozoic era and can’t seem to free themselves of their archaic strategies. They realize something is wrong but can’t bring them to change how they drive commerce. There is still a lot of focus on driving traffic to the stores rather than driving commerce to the stores.

Mobile Health and Wellness – Developed countries are driving mobile wellness and developing countries are driving mobile health.

2012 is going to be another fast-paced roller coaster for the mobile industry. Looking forward to a terrific year ahead.

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

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

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