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CTIA Wireless 2008 Roundup April 4, 2008

Posted by chetan in : AORTA, Carriers, Enterprise Mobility, Speaking Engagements, M&A, 3G, Devices, Mobile Advertising, US Wireless Market, Mobile Content, Mobile Entertainment, Mergers and Acquisitions, International Trade, Location based Services, MVNO, Indian Wireless market, BRIC, WiMax, Mobile Gaming, ARPU, Japan wireless market, European wireless market, Mobile TV, Mobile Applications, Smart Phone, Worldwide Wireless Market, Mobile Ecosystem, Speech Recognition, Mobile Search, Wi-Fi, Wireless Value Chain, 4G, CTIA , 2 comments

CTIA Wireless 2008 Roundup

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

The Sin City hosted CTIA Wireless 2008 earlier this week. On Wednesday morning, just before leaving for the convention center, I caught some portion of Ben Bernanke’s congressional testimony on the US economy woes. Few minutes later, strolling the show floor, talking to various companies, and hearing the keynotes, it seemed like I was on a different planet. Either someone failed to deliver the memo or the wireless industry is resilient enough to weather the turmoil in the financial and housing markets with some ease. The show was bigger with more attendees, the booths were returning to their glamorous heydays of the past, and the general buzz and energy at the show all seem to indicate the industry is going to do just fine and is primed for further growth. The general themes were around open network and access, user experience, and bandwidth.

This note summarizes our impressions from the show.

CTIA Wireless in Pictures

First let’s do the numbers: CTIA released their semi-annual statistics on the US market. In summary: For 2007, $23B in data revenues, 2 trillion in MOU, $139B in total service revenues, 48B txt messages/month. (We released our US Market and Global Market updates last month)

Keynotes: In terms of style, Sir Richard Branson stole the show with his pompous exuberance and pep talk (the talk of imaginary flight to Mars was hilarious; investors in Microgin and Viroo must be upset). For substance, Marco Boerries, President, Yahoo Mobile gave a nice compact overview of Yahoo initiatives and products in the market which are pretty darn good. (Marco wrote an opinion piece for our Mobile Advertising Book – “The future of Advertising is in the Consumers’ Pockets”). Yahoo has sewn together a number of deals worldwide that gives them a potential reach of over 600M users.

Vodafone is one operator which has been quite vocal in stating its positions on future infrastructure roadmap and data opportunities. Arun Sarin is probably the only CEO of major global operator who has publicly stated that Mobile Advertising will constitute a significant portion of their revenues in the coming days (Arun’s point person on the initiative Richard Saggers also wrote an opinion piece for our book “Opportunities for Mobile Advertising.” Let me know if you are interested in reading these two opinion pieces).

Microsoft’s Robbie Bach had the tough task of following the Branson-fest. He announced the arrival of a full-blown browser (finally!) for windows mobile. Also, the new windows mobile device from Sony Ericsson (Xperia) looks pretty darn cool. FCC Chairman Martin announced the rejection of Skype petition on the carterphone principle (to Skype’s dismay, it was not an April fool’s joke). Clearly, the definition of “open” is in the eye of the beholder. It means different things to different people. It has also been clear from the various activities and keynotes that the industry is trying its utmost to remain a “Self-regulated” industry and stay away from the clutches of eager politicians.

Lowell McAdam, CEO of Verizon Wireless conducted a panel with CEOs from Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, and Nortel and probed them on the 4G migration path, trends in applications and services, and contrasts in adoption and introduction of new technology in various parts of the world. Final day was marked by what is now becoming a trend - keynotes from politicians. This time around Sen. Edwards and Sen. Thompson graced the podium.

Mobile Advertising: In talking with numerous players in the value chain from small developers to large operators to ad networks to media companies, the impression was that things have matured over the last six months. It was gratifying to hear that some companies are adopting strategies and recommendations we propose in our book. Still, some of the basic problems remain – majority of the inventory remain unsold indicating weak demand, CPM rates are still over-rated though they are starting to come down, and fragmentation continues to remain an issue.

The good news is that the size of the mobile campaign budgets are getting bigger with several seven figure RFPs floating around. While some companies are still trying to throw a lot at the wall in the hope that something sticks, others are maturing as companies and are more focused in their positioning and product roadmaps. Integration of various channels is starting to appear on the horizon and the integration with the publishers is becoming tighter. The issue of measurement and auditing standards remains a big issue and unfortunately not much progress to report. There are carrier initiatives and various industry bodies are taking the challenge to rally the ecosystem, but, frankly, consolidation of such efforts is necessary, we can’t afford yet another layer of fragmentation in an already complex ecosystem.

We were interviewed on Mobile Advertising prior to the show by several publications. Some of the articles were published this week to coincide with CTIA

Wireless Wave (CTIA) – Moving Targets: Mobile marketing reaches consumers on their terms by Lynn Thorne

BrandWeek – Mobile Marketing – Fantasy vs. Reality by Ken Hein

Wall Street Journal – Personalized promotions: Sending the right ads to your phone – Peggy Anne Salz

NFC: There were many more NFC-enabled devices on display this time and vendors were talking and demoing NFC and Biometrics based payment solutions. While there are handsets on the roadmap, this market is still very nascent in North America and Western Europe.

Inspiration: The inspiration for new and creative services still comes (at least for yours truly) from Japan (and Korea). I love spending time in DoCoMo’s booth for it gives a glimpse into what’s to come. No other company better understands the development of devices, services and applications that overlay on lifestyles than DoCoMo (e.g. a wellness handset that is a pedometer, heart rate monitor, body and bad breath monitor and yes, you can make voice calls too). They view wireless air-interfaces as nothing more than enablers to solutions that enhance daily lives. Various device manufacturers also displayed some really cool devices. The quality and diversity of handsets that have been introduced into the global markets over the last four quarters is just astonishing. The cycle of innovation and time-to-market keeps on accelerating.

Femto Cells: A number of players like Airwalk, Airvana, and others are bringing Femto cell solutions to the market and carriers are starting to pull this into their strategy as well and look forward to deployments beyond the trials.

4G: LTE vs. WiMAX (vs. UMB): Since the decision of Vodafone and Verizon to support LTE, UMB has been disappearing from the discussion. The 4G discussion is convulsing around LTE and WiMAX now (though Nortel did indicate its support TD-SCDMA as a 4G candidate). Without a doubt the operator community is rallying behind LTE and there might be an opportunity to finally converge to a single standard (haven’t we seen this movie before) but frankly, the advances in silicon to integrate multiple radios has made the standards debate less relevant. WiMAX has forced acceleration of LTE standardization process but is starting to lose its time (and cost) advantage. All eyes are on Sprint’s XOHM business rollouts in the coming days and months.

Accessories: I have never seen so many accessory and reseller outfits at a CTIA show. Business must be booming.

Best Booth: Thought there were several good layouts, LG and Samsung continue to impress with their creativity and “art of marketing.”

Developer and Publisher woes: Along with John Philips (Astraware) and Peter Baldwin (Cellmania), I helped facilitate a few developer session at the Mobile Jam Session organized by WIP. The issues of distribution, discovery, and monetization remain challenging for the small developers worldwide. Even with million user base, they are finding it difficult to monetize but we did discuss a number of success stories. The core elements of success that emerged from the discussion were: choosing the right market, embedding viral component into everything you throw out there, there is no room for mediocrity, and personalizing and customizing go a long way to get traction. An interesting tidbit: the number of page views for mobile MySpace app is a magnitude higher on off-deck vs. ondeck. Several of the companies are trying mobile advertising with varying degrees of success. After spending 4 hours with the developers, I sat on a carrier panel discussing mobile advertising. The contrast between the two worlds was so apparent. Clearly, more needs to be done to help both sides understand each other a bit better.

Green CTIA: There is a stronger emphasis on recycling and contributing to save the environment. The show itself is a big resource hog, so every bit helps.

Alternate Mobile Devices: The universe of alternate devices is expanding. Companies are buying wholesale data packages from the operators and integrating broadband chipsets into hardware to do digital signage (ICG), M2M (Sensorlogic), PND and much more. The definition of being “mobile” keeps on changing.

On Being “Open”: Obviously, given the recent activity around openness, getting a penny for each time the word was uttered by a speaker would have paid off for a lifetime of CTIA trips. While talk is cheap, demonstrable progress is being made by the likes Yahoo, Apple (btw, 3G iPhone is on its way), and AOL.

Another MVNO experiences turmoil: Movida - a Spanish focused MVNO which has garnered almost 300K subs filed for chapter 11.

Voice is becoming mainstream: With the product launches from Nuance, SpinVox, Vlingo, Jott, Yahoo, and many others, voice based navigation and its tighter integration with data services is becoming mainstream.

Where are the opportunities? Last week, I was moderating a panel with executives from AOL Mobile, T-Mobile, Motricity, and Formotus and the themes that emerged were around platform play, user experience, and productivity. At CTIA, in addition to these areas, there was a lot of discussion around social networking (though the market is being saturated with the MoSo noise). It is also clear that we are moving into the phase of “aggregation of fragmentation” with initiatives from Yahoo, AOL, and Google dominating the landscape.

Home Screen Effect: I have been talking about using the home screen for driving data usage for the last 8 years. I think we will see good innovation this year on that front starting with Yahoo’s One Platform. There are several other initiatives in the works where operators and OEMs will be deploying frameworks and technologies to bring information to a “click-less” idle screen environment.

Overall, no major news but industry stays vibrant, healthy, and exciting.

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

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

WTIA Event - Mobile Mania, Where’s the Money? March 28, 2008

Posted by chetan in : Speaking Engagements, US Wireless Market, Mobile Content, Indian Wireless market, European wireless market, Mobile Applications, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Search, Wireless Value Chain , 2 comments

Had a terrific turnout at the event and it was very well organized by WTIA. Jai Jaisimha, VP, AOL gave the keynote around their Open Initiative which seems like a comprehensive program compared to some of the other initiatives in the market place.

wtia1

wtia3 wtia2

After that I moderated the panel with Jai, Brendan Benzing (Motricity), Ian McKerlich (T-Mobile), and Joe Verschueren( Formotus). We delved into where the opportunities lie in the coming years. Jai and Brendan emphasized platform, Ian talked about user experience and simplicity, and Joe put some emphasis on enterprise applications.

Global Wireless Data Market Update 2007 March 27, 2008

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

Global Wireless Data Market Update 2007

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

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

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

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

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

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

Recap of Mobile Advertising Events - Stanford and Seattle March 22, 2008

Posted by chetan in : AORTA, Carriers, Middleware, Speaking Engagements, M&A, Mobile Advertising, US Wireless Market, Mobile Content, Mobile Entertainment, Indian Wireless market, Mobile Gaming, ARPU, Mobile TV, Mobile Applications, Worldwide Wireless Market, Mobile Usability, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Search, Wireless Value Chain , add a comment

This week I had the opportunity to moderate two distinguished panels on Mobile Advertising in two days, one at Stanford University and the other one in Seattle. This post summarizes the issues and points discussed during these two sessions.

Stanford University by Mobile Momentum

The first one was part our book tour and was organized by Mobile Momentum, an organization lead by Prof. Tom Kosnik and his student Mohit Gundecha. The event was sponsored by three of the pioneers in Mobile Advertising space - AdInfuse, Admob, and Rhythm New Media. My co-author Victor Melfi and I walked through some of the salient points of our book. We discussed the history of advertising, the digital revolution of the Internet, delved a bit into the definition of mobile advertising, the challenges and accelerators of this nascent industry, pondered over the business models, illustrated some of the successes using the case studies and our five-points framework (reach, engagement, targeting, viral, and transactions), briefly touched on the technology issues and gave our 2c on what it will take for the industry to go from its current state of “cautious optimism” to promise of “contextual nirvana.” Some of the key points were:

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Our talk was followed by a panel discussion with Ujjal Kohli, CEO, Rhythm New Media, Tony Nethercutt, VP, Admob, and David Staas, VP, AdInfuse. All these guys have had distinguished careers in mobile, advertising, and digital evolution of our industry and hence the depth of knowledge on the panel was just great. Each of them has had successes with campaigns around the world, not just in North America. Admob with its billions of impressions every few weeks has blazed the way in the off-deck world. Rhythm has been quite successful with advertising with mobile video snacking at 3 in UK.

AdInfuse has been running some interesting campaigns in Europe like with Swisscom.They were achieving 8% CTR on WAP banner campaigns, 50% of users who clicked through to the WAP landing page completed a purchase. Recall rates were as high as 27%, more than 80% of the users rated the model of “free video content in return of advertising” positively vs. 2% who didn’t like the idea. Rhythm has also experienced similar numbers with their 3 UK campaigns. It is remarkable that 40% of the subscriber base is using the service and one can still watch the ad subsidized videos even if they have run out of prepaid minutes. The reach provided by Admob to its advertisers is phenomenal. Coca-cola’s campaign touched 125 countries. We cover Rhythm’s and Admob’s case studies in more detail in our book as well.

We touched on a wide variety of topics and I was struck by something that Ujjal said. He was previously CMO of AirTouch Cellular so brings in a very unique perspective to the table. He said, “For the carrier, No amount of Mobile Advertising Revenue is worth the risk of losing a customer.” The issues around privacy, customer satisfaction, customer care costs are critical for an operator to assess as they dive deeper into this new emerging medium.

There are a number of developers who are interested in exploiting the opportunity of mobile advertising but don’t want to deal with the complexity of the ecosystem and ad networks. There is an opportunity for some of the existing players to open up the APIs to broaden the reach.

Seattle by TiE

Next day, TiE Seattle organized a panel discussing “Mobile Advertising: Making the most of the next generation in advertising.” The panelists were Scott Silk, CEO, ActionEngine, Brian Lent, CEO, Medio Systems, Eric Hertz, CEO, Zumobi, Jeff Giard, Director, Alltel, and Jason Guenther, Director, Disney. Again, a pretty diverse panel representing various players in the value chain.

I started by probing the panelists on how we go about defining “Mobile Advertising.” Brian, not surprisingly, thought Mobile Search is going to take a lion share of the revenues just like how things evolved in the online world. Eric and Scott articulated their view around On-Device Portals, Widgets, and User Experience. Action Engine has been having good success with many of the large media brands such as MSNBC and WSJ while Zumobi has come out with a platform that takes user experience at the center of its strategy.

Though at number 5, Alltel has been introducing innovations quicker than some of its peers. Its Celltop application is yielding significant results with over 400% increase in usage if the application is within Celltop framework. Next, they are going to be putting the Celltop as a Home Screen (Idle Screen) app like what Koreans and Japanese have been doing for some time. It was refreshing for Jeff to right away state that this industry is not going to move forward if we don’t solve the “fragmentation” problem. I have said before that “Fragmentation is the biggest enemy of the mobile industry” and w/o solving the issues of fragmentation at different layers, we won’t get into the hypergrowth mode that will take the industry from $2B today to $20B in five years. Jeff thought that mobile advertising presents significant opportunities for the industry including the carriers but we need to be mindful of the issues around privacy, customer care, and customer satisfaction.

Disney is world’s premier consumer brand and very few companies understand the three screens better than Disney. Jason’s perspective on how mobile fits into the larger picture was an important one. He views mobile as a critical channel for any content company but reminded that a lot of work needs to be done in terms of standardization, metrics, auditing, and  privacy before mobile advertising becomes a thriving industry.

In both places, audience was well informed and highly engaged. Questions ranged from business models to technology intricacies. People didn’t think some of the newer MVNO models like that from Blyk will last too long and that for the trends will different for different geographies. For example, in emerging markets, mobile is going to be the only means to bring digital advertising to the masses, a point we make in our book as well. Will high-end phones be free subsidized by advertising as Eric Schmidt had proclaimed, well, don’t bet your life on it, at least not just yet though if someone like Google makes up its mind, it can, as Victor says, “make the market.”

I really enjoyed engaging with the panelists and the audience. Plenty of questions, we could have gone on for hours if not days. It was quite hectic but fun. Next week, I am moderating a panel “Mobile Mania - Show me the Money” at Washington Technology Industry Association and then facilitating a developer forum “Mobile Jam Session” at CTIA on 31st. On 24th April, I will be giving a class on Mobile Advertising at Stanford University (Prof. Kosnik’s course) and the same evening, I head to Sacramento to give a talk being organized by TechCoire on “Mobile Advertising: A $20B Opportunity?” In May, on the 13th, I will be in NY giving a talk on mobile advertising to the advertising executives, on 20th will be doing a book event being organized by CommNexus in San Diego, and on 21st will be moderating a panel discussion on the promise of mobile advertising at the highly regarded Future In Review Conference.

Hope to see some of you on these sojourns.

Mobile Advertising Events March 14, 2008

Posted by chetan in : Speaking Engagements, Mobile Advertising, US Wireless Market, Mobile Content, Mergers and Acquisitions, Mobile Applications, Worldwide Wireless Market, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Search, Wireless Value Chain , 1 comment so far

It will be a very busy next few weeks

March

Next week on 19th, we are at Stanford University being hosted by Mobile Momentum to do a book event. Details here. RSVP at stanfordevent at chetansharma dot com. Bring your friends and colleagues.

The book discussion will be followed by a panel discussion with some of the smartest brains in the business - Ujjal Kohli, CEO, Rhythm New Media, Brian Cowley, CEO, AdInfuse, and Tony Nethercutt, VP, Admob.

AdInfuse, Admob, and Rhythm New Media are also the generous sponsors of the event. So, many thanks again.

The next day (20th), I fly back to Seattle to moderate a panel on Mobile Advertising being organized by TiE. Event and Registration details here. Panelists are Jeff Giard, Director, Alltel, Brian Lent, CEO, Medio Systems, Scott Silk, CEO, ActionEngine, and Jason Guenther, Director, Disney.

The following week on the 27th, I will be moderating a panel being organized by Washington Technology Industry Association. The topic is Mobile Mania - Show me the Money. Event and Registration details here. Speakers are Jai Jaisimha, VP, AOL, Brendan Benzing, VP, Motricity, F. Joseph Verschueren, CEO, Formotus, and Ian McKerlich, Director, T-Mobile USA.

April

Then, I head off to CTIA in Vegas.

In late April (24th), I will be giving a talk in Sacramento - Mobile Advertising - The $20B Opportunity?. The event is being organized by TechCoire - Sacramento region’s only business-technology education and networking organization. More info on them here. Thanks Gopan for the invite.

I got to know two wonderful people at Stanford University last year - Prof. Tom Kosnik and his student Mohit Gundecha. It was in context of the event that Mobile Momentum organized on the Indian Wireless Market. I serve on the advisory board. In fact, Mohit is single-handedly organizing our Stanford event next week.

Prof. Tom Kosnik has invited me to give a class to his students on Mobile Advertising which is great honor. His course - Global Entrepreneurial Marketing is a very popular course at Stanford and always gets full very quickly.

May

After a brief break, we head down to San Diego on 20th for another book event being organized by CommNexus - a very active High Tech and Communications Industry association.

The same week, I will be at FiRe (Future in Review) conference being organized by SNS and Mark Anderson and will be moderating a brilliant panel on Mobile Advertising. Event and Registration details here.

MSearchGroove podcast is online March 11, 2008

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

you can listen it here. Thanks Peggy.

Highlights

As he put it: “They have a different view of the advertising space. And their view of the competition is that the competitors aren’t really [other] operators, but other mediums. So if a dollar is going to TV, then that’s their competition, not a dollar going to their rival [operator].

Other highlights:

Operator assets: Operators should “focus on the unique capabilities that they have from their network and devices and expose that to the ecosystem.” That model is more compelling - and potentially more profitable - than “trying to control and become an agency themselves.”

Google & Co: Operators have the analytics - but time is a luxury they don’t have. Figure it’s 2-3 years before other providers close the gap to offer profiling, presence and location, and the metrics advertisers demand. “In the long run, the challenge will be: Will it [customer data etc…] come from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, and some other companies [as they] will have these unique characteristics [and capabilities] as well.” In three years, Chetan reckons “online brands will start to dominate the ecosystem….But if carriers are able to pool together their resources and make a very compelling offer to the media industry…they [carriers] can put up very stiff resistance to online brands.”

Mobile search: Mobile search will play an important role on mobile, but it won’t dominate the mobile Internet or advertising experience. “I think the idle screen plays this role in the long run on the mobile. And I think you’ll see more friction and fights [as companies] try to capture the idle screen user.

We should not think of search as a box, “but rather an intelligent [bot] that searches for relevant content for you and presents that content with relevant ads on the idle screen. If you think of search in that way, then search has a very important role to play. But just searching by key words will probably have a smaller role to play in the long term.

The ones to watch: Chetan and I ran through some case studies and stats from the likes of NearBy Now, which gets high marks for engagement, and mobile Posse, which gets high marks for targeting. I’ll take Chetan’s comments as a cue to line up an interview with each - in fact, I already reached out to NearbyNow for a podcast timed to their next announcement (under embargo)…In the meantime, it’s interesting to note that no company got high marks across all five metrics: reach, engagement, targeting, viral and transactions. (Transaction is the “Holy grail” of mobile advertising, where an ad delivers a sale). As Chetan observed: It’s just early days.

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

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

US Wireless Market Update - 4Q07 and 2007

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

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

Global update

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

Your feedback is always welcome.

Chetan Sharma

Carnival of the Mobilists #114 March 9, 2008

Posted by chetan in : AORTA, Carriers, Mobile Advertising, US Wireless Market, Mobile Content, Mobile Entertainment, Indian Wireless market, BRIC, Mobile Gaming, European wireless market, Mobile Applications, Worldwide Wireless Market, Mobile Usability, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Search, Wireless Value Chain, CTIA , 7 comments

COM returns to AORTA. Welcome.

Over the past couple of quarters, the mobile industry has been pretty active with a series of initiatives, milestones, and launches and our fellow Mobilists from around the world bring you the analysis, insights, and commentary of the major events, new initiatives, gaffes and goofs, startup action and much more.

The best from the last week are:

Since June 07, Apple has been capturing the headlines like no other company in the ecosystem. Michael Mace at MobileOpportunity gives a thoughtful analysis of Apple’s iPhone SDK. Abhishek Tiwari and Tricia Duryee (at Moconews) also look at iPhone’s SDK and wonder if Apple is the new carrier? More SDK analysis by Gábor Török.

Ajit Jaokar, author and the yeoman at OpenGardens writes another insightful post, this time on “The significance of Google Gears on mobile devices” follow-up from this one.

Russell Buckley at Mobhappy talks about the “Uniqueness of the Mobile Channel” especially from an advertising perspective. Jamie Wells of Mobilestance which focuses on the US Mobile Marketing Perspectives provides insights into Buzzd, a company founded by Nihal Mehta of ipsh! fame. Nihal is well-versed with the mobile market and Jamie’s interview gives information on this new startup.

Peggy Salz at MSearchGroove provides some insightful commentary on the state of mobile search, mobile advertising and social media. She has a good podcast with Kate Edwards, CEO of Jentro Technologies.

Andreas Constantinou at Vision Mobile does a couple of brilliant posts on summarizing “Learnings from the MWC 08″ and lists his 10 predictions for MWC 09. Be sure to check out the Mobile Megatrends presentation as well.

Martin Sauter, author and curator of WirelessMoves opines on the overhyped battle between WiMAX and LTE. Media and analysts need some fights to keep things interesting :-)

Dean Bubley at Disruptive Analysis in his usual analytical style makes the case for dismantling the control over the SIM card and by association, the SIM distributors.

Dennis Bournique of WAP Review provides a detailed review of WebClip2Go a content clipping service for your mobile devices.

Paul Ruppert - the Zenmaestro at Mobile Messaging 2.0 ponders on “what it means to be mobile?”

David Cushman at Fast Future writes about Microblogging and how twitter is enticing him into getting his iPhone.

Finally, some details on the Mobile Jam Session at m-trends. It is being hosted by Caroline Lewko and Rudy De Waele at CTIA in Vegas on March 31st.

Be sure to participate next time. Andrew Grill hosts the next Carnival. Send in your entries to mobilists at gmail dot com. Until next time, happy mobile daze ahead.

Sampling Errors: "Pay attention to what I do, Not what I Say" February 7, 2008

Posted by chetan in : Mobile Advertising, US Wireless Market, Mobile Content, Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Gaming, Japan wireless market, European wireless market, Mobile Applications, Worldwide Wireless Market, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Search, Wireless Value Chain , add a comment

The current primary season in the US provides an exciting time for both political junkies and the number junkies. The stats that have been pouring out from the contests is great data to analyze. It is also interesting to follow the polling of various contests and how on/off the mark they get from time to time. Polling is now getting to these ridiculous daily polls. I often wonder if there is anyone left in the country who hasn’t been polled.

There have been so many errors in the polls even in the ones that were taken a day before and the reasons for them are simple - it is primarily due to sampling errors. The pollsters made mistakes in accurately representing the likely-to-vote population. Some errors creep in due to people not accurately reflecting their choices or change their minds at the last minute.

Why am I talking about this? Similar survey and polls have relevance in the technology world especially in services and products that are consumer oriented. Many companies and service providers fall into the trap of “what consumers say they want.” I always had a feeling that people don’t always accurately reflect their choices either consciously or unconsciously. To prove this point, i looked at data to see the differences between the same user w.r.t. their explicit (what they say) and implicit (what they do) preferences and the results were quite revealing. Majority of the people (80%+) don’t always do what they say - meaning they might indicate that one band is their top choice but their actions reveal something totally different. Also, their preferences evolve and change over time so a survey done today will be outdated in 6 months for the same person.

We have a section in the book “Mobile Advertising” where I looked at some data provided by AgentArts (which got acquired by FAST which got acquired by Microsoft) and present my findings in the section “Pay attention to what i do, Not what i Say”

Always be careful about the data you gather and make sure it represents reality before you start analyzing and crafting strategies based on them.

Recap of Pacific Northwest Wireless Summit January 22, 2008

Posted by chetan in : AORTA, Strategy, Carriers, Speaking Engagements, 3G, Mobile Advertising, US Wireless Market, Indian Wireless market, WiMax, ARPU, European wireless market, Mobile Applications, Worldwide Wireless Market, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Search, Wi-Fi, Wireless Value Chain, 4G , add a comment

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Beautiful Vancouver, BC hosted the first Pacific Northwest Wireless Summit 16-17. I got up early at 4 and by 4:30 (yes in the morning) was on my way up north. A nice 3 hr drive into the city.

On 16th the conference hosted the leadership summit of prominent folks in the wireless industry from Northwest. I was invited but couldn’t make it. 17th was the main conference while 18th was devoted for investment related discussions. There were keynote presentations spread throughout the day from experienced professionals to young entrepreneurs, a pretty good mix of apps, services, and infrastructure discussion. Some of the most interesting ones were given by Peter Howley, Chairman of Success Generation Systems and Fred Ghahramani, cofounder, AirG.

Conference was divided into the technology track and the business track. I participated mostly on the business track so missed out the technology discussion. The day started with a small presentation I gave on Mobile Advertising which was the first time I was sharing some of the research from our upcoming Mobile Advertising book.

Then, Olivier Vincent of Canpages discussed the role of local content in advertising. Following the two presentations we went straight into the exciting panel discussion. Alfredo Tan, Sr. Director at Yahoo! Mobile and Matt Snyder who recently was very active Nokia Mobile Advertising efforts (and now runs his consulting company) joined in with moderator Michael Bidu.

We had a very engaging discussion on the state, potential, opportunities, and the risks in mobile advertising. We could have gone for hours. The key points I drew from the discussion were that we are early but things are growing fast and as long as we take care of fragmentation and privacy issues, mobile advertising has a strong future ahead.

The second session was moderated by Fred of AirG with Alfredo, Trevor Doerksen (Mobovivo), and Stephen Nykolyn (Material Insight) on the panel. Fred was very keen on the carrier being the dumb-pipe debate trying to corner the panelists into forecasting the fate of the operators in the next few years and like able politicians, no-one attempted to bite.

There was a panel on Mobile Trends and Insights which also led into the discussion of why foreign companies don’t do so well in developing markets. Lack of local presence and strategy is the main reason.

Next, I moderated a panel on Understanding Mobile Asia with panelists - Asokan Thiyagarajan, Motorola, David Dai, CellOn China, and Karl Weaver, Newport. Again, we could have gone for a long time as there is lack of understanding of the Asian markets - China, India, Japan, and Korea. We discussed stats, business models, technologies, strategies for companies to succeed in these markets.

Caroline Lewko has been the fearless leaders of the developers and her work at WIP Connector has helped numerous companies and individuals. She moderated a discussion on go-to-market strategy.

By now, it was time to head back. After managing through the city traffic, it was a smooth ride back after crossing the border.

All-in-all a great start to what I hope will be an annual event.

Pacific Northwest Wireless Summit January 15, 2008

Posted by chetan in : AORTA, Strategy, Middleware, Enterprise Mobility, Security, Speaking Engagements, 3G, Devices, Mobile Advertising, US Wireless Market, Mobile Content, Mobile Entertainment, Location based Services, Indian Wireless market, Mobile Gaming, ARPU, Japan wireless market, European wireless market, Mobile Applications, Worldwide Wireless Market, Mobile Ecosystem, Mobile Search, Wireless Value Chain, Privacy , 1 comment so far

Looking forward to meeting new friends and colleagues at the upcoming PNWS conference in beautiful Vancouver, BC this Thursday.There are some really great speakers and panelists. I have the privilege to present, participate, and moderate in two of the panels.

Mobile Marketing and Advertising

I will be sharing some research from our upcoming book on Mobile Advertising and then participate in a panel discussion with Alfredo Tan, Yahoo! Mobile, Matt Snyder, ADO Strategies (formerly with Nokia), and Olivier Vincent, Canpages. The panel is moderated by Michael Bidu of WINBC.

Understand Mobile Asia

I will be moderating this panel consisting of Asokan Thiyagarajan, Motorola, David Dai, CellOn China, and Karl Weaver, Newport Technologies.

If you would like to see any specific questions answered, please let me know. I will do a conference report later this weekend.

Apart from these panels, there are other panels on Mobile Commerce, Mobile Entertainment and Social Networking, Mobile Trends, Insights, Undeserved Vertical Markets, Mobile Enterprise, Disruptive Technologies, Smart DNAs, Wireless Innovation and Accelerated Commercialization, Go-to-market strategy. CEOs and executives from prominent companies in the region are going to be there. There are keynotes throughout the day including Luni from Medio, Fred Ghahramani, AirG, and Sue Abu-Hakima, Amika Mobile.

Caroline Lewko of WIP and WINBC fame also be moderating a couple of sessions.

There will be discussion about 2010 Olympics as well.

All in all a very packed day from 8am to 9pm and then a mixer that will probably go till midnight.

Hope to see some of you there.

Mobile Industry Predictions - 2008 January 1, 2008

Posted by chetan in : AORTA, Carriers, Middleware, Security, M&A, 3G, Mobile Advertising, US Wireless Market, Mobile Content, Mobile Entertainment, Mergers and Acquisitions, Location based Services, MVNO, Indian Wireless market, BRIC, WiMax, Mobile Gaming, ARPU, Japan wireless market, Unified Messaging, Messaging, European wireless market, Mobile TV, Mobile Applications, Smart Phone, Worldwide Wireless Market, Mobile Usability, Mobile Ecosystem, Microsoft Mobile, Speech Recognition, Mobile Search, Wi-Fi, Wireless Value Chain, 4G, Privacy , 7 comments

I never think of future, it comes soon enough – Albert Einstein

First things first. Wish you a very happy and successful 2008.

Before we look at what’s to come, let’s do a quick wrap-up of the year that was.

2007 will clearly be remembered as “the year of iPhone.” While there were several other “events/trends of interest” through-out the year, nothing captured the imagination of the world like the iPhone. It was significant for another big reason – it had a profound impact on the business model and ecosystem dynamics. Q4 2007 was also significant for the deafening roar that resonated around “Openness”.

Steve Ballmer exclaimed mobile to be the next battleground while Eric Schmidt pondered why mobile phones are not free (subsidized by Google ads of course).

Google played its chess game effectively and though it is unlikely to play to win the 700 MHz auction or even if they do win would be able to do anything substantive in the short-term, they did, however, with Android and spectrum gambit, force some of the regulation-wary operators to take a stance on openness. Nokia is putting together a brilliant services strategy that looks to connect directly to the consumer. Competition and coopitition will have a different meaning going forward.

Things were looking positive for WiMAX until the end of the year when Clearwire was left standing on its own. It will look towards Google, Sprint, Motorola, and others to rescue its fate.

Mobile Advertising was hailed as a great savior of mobile content and mobile revenues in general. Blyk even launched an advertising-based MVNO. We made significant headway in energizing the sub segment but the tough problems of privacy, education, control, fragmentation, and user experience remain. LBS picked up steam and mobility started to get into the alternate consumer device universe.

In terms of actual dollars, mobile data market continued its steady growth with substantial shifts in revenue towards non-SMS data applications and services. Several operators are doing $2B/quarter+ in data revenues. Several subscription milestones throughout the year: 3B worldwide, 500M China, 250M US, 225M India. 3G continued to inch towards mass-market in western markets (20-25% penetration) while in Korea and Japan, it was getting hard to find people without 3G (70%+ penetration).

Among other events of significance: Cincinnati Bell and T-Mobile launched UMA devices, Motorola lost its Mojo, Amp’D and Disney Mobile shut down, MediaFLO launched, mCommerce initiatives took hold, China continued to delay 3G, WM got updated, Yahoo cemented some impressive operator deals as GYM got more active in mobile, UMPC fizzled, Mobile Web 2.0 got into the industry physce, LTE got embraced worldwide, M&A galored, IP scuffles continued, Muni projects went into coma, and DRM-adorned content became a thing of the past.

2008 will be a pretty eventful year from several perspectives: business models, user experience and expectations, ecosystem posturing, disruption, and friction. How are things going to shape up? What will be hot and what will fade into oblivion? How will competition shape up the new sub-segments? We put some of the questions to our colleagues in the industry. This survey was a bit different in the sense that the movers and shakers (and folks from the companies discussed here) and industry insiders participated. We were able to glean some valuable insights from their choices and comments. Participants (n=196) were folks from across the mobile value chain and from around the world.

Many thanks to everyone who participated.

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(click for larger image)

Three names were drawn for a copy of our upcoming book “Mobile Advertising” (co-authored with Joe Herzog and Victor Melfi, John Wiley & Sons, 432 pages, Feb 2008).

The winners are:

  1. David Cushman, Director, Emap

  2. Larry Shapiro, VP, Disney, and

  3. Keith Kostuch, SVP, Alltel

Congrats and Thank you.

Now onto the survey analysis.

Figures above and below summarize the responses. We requested respondents to rate the probability of an event happening in 2008 on a scale 1 to 5. 1 being “Not a chance” to 5 being “100% probability” The figure above summarizes the overall probability of the event happening. The figure below provides the breakdown of responses.

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1. Will Google introduce a Google Branded Phone in 2008?

Will it? Won’t it? 44.5% gave it a 75% or higher chance of happening while 40% thought it ain’t happening. GPhone is a temptation Google will find hard to resist though a lot will depend on how various initiatives and partnerships shape-up on the ground. In any case, expect another major announcement in the next 2-3 months.

2. Will Google play to win in the 700MHz Spectrum Auction?

Google has played the spectrum chess game effectively. Almost 50% respondents gave it a 75% or higher chance of Google winning the bid. Though expectations are high, Google is unlikely to play to win. Services business is not their cup of tea, they could still fund the Clearwire-Sprint deal but that investment can be spent differently to get better end-results, i.e. mobile ad revenue.

3. Will Microsoft launch its own mobile phone?

Unless Google comes out with GPhone, Microsoft will stay content with its operator distribution strategy. 63% of respondents gave it less than a 25% chance of Microsoft releasing their own phone. If GPhone comes out and gets some traction, expect Microsoft to get its “fast follower” strategy into high gear.

4. Will Mobile Payments get traction in North America and Western Europe?

Only 9% thought it is a sure bet for 2008. True mobile commerce hasn’t really started in the western world. While there are significant movements, 2008 will just be a “lay the groundwork” year for mobile payments.

5. Will WiMAX regroup from its setbacks?

Only 35% gave it a 75% or higher chance (of WiMAX resurrecting itself esp. in the US in 2008). A lot depends on how Mr. Hesse deals with Sprint’s WiMAX business. Indications are there will be a deal with Clearwire to off-load the risks via some external investment (Google?).

6. Will Helio survive 2008?

Almost 70% respondents thought Helio won’t make it. Given the flameout of some of the prominent new-generation MVNOs, it is hard to see how Helio will see 2009. It will all come down to how persistent is SK Telecom. Earthlink doesn’t have the bank balance to keep funding this initiative.

7. Will Verizon truly open-up its garden for third-party visitations?

Only 5% thought it is a sure bet for 2008. Verizon’s open posturing was more to ward off any regulators and to improve its image. There is unlikely to be any meaningful progress on this front this year.

8. Will 2008 be the inflection year for Mobile Advertising?

42% gave Mobile Advertising a 75% or higher chance for rapid growth. Market will mature, more consolidation, some privacy gaffes but overall things are looking up for mobile advertising.

9. Will Femto-Cells gain any significant momentum in 2008?

It will be an introduction and experimentation year, so no significant traction is expected. Over 52% thought Femto-Cells will be just a buzz word in 2008.

10. Wil