Daily Research News Online no. 5659

Mobile Comms Digest

June 28 2006

Mobile phone and mobile data markets continue to expand and diversify, giving rise to a large number of published reports and top line results releases. Here DRNO covers a few, from cellphone feature requirements to MR opportunities, to the challenges facing corporate Blackberry managers.

Mobile Consumers Want Office

Consumers across all age groups consider Microsoft Office to be foremost among the features they would wish to have on their mobile phones in the future, according to research using ORC International's new online mobile consumer panel - ORC OmniPanel. Findings from the study underline the growing sophistication of mobile phone users, along with consumers' evident liking for multi-function handsets and devices.

Demand for the MS Mobile office suite - cited by 45% of the sample -finished narrowly ahead of Mobile TV (44%), which was a firm favourite among 16 -24 year olds. Just over one in ten consumers interviewed claim to be using these features already. Other key features in demand are a QWERTY keyboard (39% of respondents), radio (32%) and an image manipulator / photo editor (31%).

The overall design and style of the phone is, however, the factor which most influences choice of handset (cited by 31%).

Neil Ferguson Divisional manager of the firm's telecoms practice, says the findings highlight the challenge for manufacturers in balancing 'the very strong purchase drivers of fashion and functionality. Handset ease of use will also continue to have a dramatic effect on ARPU. However, the research demonstrates that users will increasingly demand a higher specification OS and UI with superior application capabilities.'

More than 500 consumers were interviewed - the next wave, in July, will include more than 2,000 respondents. ORC International is online at www.orc.co.uk .

Irresistible Wi-Fi

A report from In-Stat says converged Wi-Fi/Cellular handsets are expected to take the market by storm, with shipments exceeding 132 million devices by 2010. In-Stats says Wi-Fi 'has spread so fast that [reluctant] carriers will not be able to resist much longer.'

'In the end, most US cellular carriers will embrace Wi-Fi in their handsets, as carriers know that if they don't, other carriers will, and these carriers will likely steal away some of their customers' says Analyst Allen Nogee. The report, The Road to Convergence: Wi-Fi/Cellular Handsets Get a Voice, says that more than 20 cellular handset models now have, or will soon be, released with embedded Wi-Fi access and that unexpectedly, consumers may provide the initial market rather than business users.

In-Stat is part of Reed Business Information, within the Reed Elsevier global information network, and is online at www.in-stat.com .

European 3G Card Prices Vary Widely

A study by Coleago Consulting Ltd highlights 'startling differences in pricing' between the UK's newly launched 3G mobile broadband data card services for laptops. The services, from Vodafone and by T-Mobile, make use of new HSDPA technology. The cards give laptop users access at speeds of up to 1.8 Mbit/s, similar to ADSL and cable modem broadband services.

The study says Vodafone UK's 'unlimited' offer has a monthly price tag of £45 while T-Mobile only charges £17 - and their definitions of 'unlimited' are different, creating wider disparity still, according to the report, which states: 'A quick calculation shows that the per Mbyte price with Vodafone works out at £ 0.045 whereas T-Mobile users would only pay £ 0.0085 per Mbyte.'

The report says there are 'even greater disparities' when compared with packages in Germany and the US, but notes that UK prices are likely to fall, particularly once O2 and Orange launch their own HSDPA offers. Elsewhere in Europe, prices in the Netherlands are among the lowest, whereas mobile data prices in Austria, Spain and Switzerland are comparable or slightly higher than prices in Germany.

Coleago's home page is at www.coleago.com .

Challenge for BlackBerry Cultivators

Increased use of sophisticated mobile devices such as BlackBerrys and other so-called smartphones is creating new challenges for enterprise IT departments and a market for products and services aimed at managing high-end handsets, according to Light Reading Inc.'s Unstrung Enterprise Insider subscription service.

The report, Handset Management: Who's Minding Your BlackBerry?, says enterprises with employees that travel extensively can improve productivity and cut costs using remote troubleshooting, configuration and updating of handsets. It also stresses the importance to CIOs and IT managers of checking devices' low-speed network compatibility and roaming functionality, and their inclusion of a 'kill pill' feature which locks and/or erases devices which are lost or stolen.

'Although handset-management tools are relatively new in the enterprise space, wireless carriers have used their precursors internally for more than a decade to handle tasks such as issuing lists of roaming partners' notes report author Tim Kridel. 'This is important because it means that the foundation has been laid for handset-management tools that put enterprises in control.'

Online info and details of a free summary are available via www.unstrung.com/enterprise .

Mobile Survey Option for b2b and Medical Targets

B2b and medical respondents are among the 'hard to get' groups that may be 'easier to get' using a new solution from German survey software supplier Globalpark, working with Pearl Medical, a leading British provider of mobile communications services for healthcare professionals. The solution offers highly qualified target groups a BlackBerry on special terms, in return for which they have to take part in regular online surveys using the device. The first project was launched in April 2006 in the UK, among GPs.

Globalpark's developers equipped Surveycenter, their online survey software product, with a CAMI (Computer Assisted Mobile Interviewing) module. 'Without this innovative technology it would have been impossible to develop the BlackBerry service,' notes Pearl MD Chris Tobin. The CAMI module automatically reformats the online questionnaire to BlackBerry screen size and greatly reduces the data volume of the BlackBerry questionnaire, also allowing interview suspension and continuation at a more convenient time.

'Mobile devices are becoming ever more important as communication media. In many sectors they have been standard issue for senior executives and field staff for a long time,' explains Frank Kleinert, Globalpark GmbH's Director of Marketing & Sales. 'Our BlackBerry project exploits this trend to conduct market research among small, precisely defined target groups.'

Globalpark GmbH is based in H�rth near Cologne and has offices in London and Vienna. It is on the web at www.globalpark.de .

..or Teenagers�

Teenagers are highly responsive to mobile branding and marketing techniques, according to findings from mobile software provider Mobilitec's ongoing global research project, The Lab. The Lab consists of a group of 11 teens from around the world who complete a monthly task using their mobile phones, finding , accessing, using and paying for different types of mobile content.

Mobilitec says that the teens represent a generation who 'expect to be marketed to on their phones, just as they are on the Internet, TV and other media.' The teens in The Lab anticipated advertising or special offers, and email and SMS messages telling them about new games, good deals and ways to rate and share games they liked with other teens. In addition, they were actually surprised not to see more games that tied into the brands they recognize - this could include television and movie tie-ins as well as games they had played on their computers or game consoles.

Margaret Norton, president and CEO says the teens 'wanted to be marketed to as part of the mobile experience. The Internet generation not only expects but wants to be reached with advertising and special offers that are personal and relevant to them.'

The Lab is online at www.mobilitec.com/thelab.

European Market Forecasts

A few statistics to put all this in context? Telecoms, IT and media specialist Analysys says the Western European mobile market is forecast to grow by more than 6% per year to reach Euros 198.4 billion in 2011.

The Western European Mobile Market: trends and forecasts 2006-2011 expects growth to be driven primarily by rich-media services including music and television, given that mobile penetration is close to saturation.

Total mobile services revenue is forecast to grow at a compound average growth rate of 6.2% from Euros 138.4bn in 2005 to 198.4bn in 2011. Active mobile penetration in Western Europe was 96.2% at the end of 2005 and is forecast to grow to 108.8% by 2011, driven by operators' efforts to penetrate under-served customer segments (such as older demographics), as well as by increased ownership of multiple SIM cards and more machine-to-machine communication. Average Revenue Per User has bottomed out and will continue to recover, rising by 20% from Euros 31.3 in 2005 to 37.5 in 2011.

Report author Dr Windsor Holden points to 'a rapid acceleration in the number of full-track downloads and in streamed TV usage' as mobile broadband takes off and users get more comfortable with multimedia content. Longer term prospects for voice revenues are also encouraging: 'Operators are beginning to take advantage of 3G's greater capacity to offer lower-cost bundles, thereby accelerating fixed-mobile substitution.' The report concludes that fixed-mobile convergence has emerged as a key strategic challenge for mobile operators. 'While it is likely to further encourage fixed-mobile substitution', says Holden, 'fixed operators' moves towards converged technologies will also result in greater competition within the mobile market.'

The company is online at www.analysys.com .