Mobile Services

Vodafone launches mobile healthcare unit; CEO hints at further deals

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:00:30 -0500

Pushing further into the mobile services sector, Vodafone has unveiled a healthcare unit to specifically work with pharmaceutical companies and government organisations. The remit of the new team, according to Vodafone's CEO, Vittorio Colao, was to focus on healthcare solutions and to better understand the needs of healthcare professionals.

"I believe that mobile technology has a significant role to play in the provision of health care, primarily in the simplification of work flows, statistical analysis and record keeping and by giving professional healthcare providers the ability to support lifestyle choices for the chronically ill," Colao said.

This new effort by Vodafone comes a year after its venture capital arm made an undisclosed investment in t+ Medical, a firm specialising in the use of mobile technology to transfer patient biometric data. Vodafone's US partner, Verizon Wireless, has already launched a healthcare service as a joint-venture with Qualcomm.

In emerging economies such as India and China, in particular, Colao added that "mobile technology could reach people in under-resourced, geographically dispersed communities."

Staying with emerging markets, the CEO said that he expected African and Indian markets to continue growing in 2010, while the European sector would stabilise.

However, Colao hinted that further consolidation in the telecoms industry was likely as the technology continues to improve and develop. "Vodafone will evaluate possible options in the future," said the CEO, noting that the company has already signed network-sharing deals with other operators.

For more on this story:
Total Telecom1 and Total Telecom2

Strategies for the success of mobile search

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:11:35 -0400

With a growing appetite for mobile applications, services and content, consumers and business users will be looking to mobile search to streamline their information/content access and retrieval.

"Unfortunately, there is little 'joy of use' in the current mobile search user experience", said Sarah Burnett, Ovum Senior Analyst, based in London. With a growing appetite for mobile content, consumers and business users will be looking to mobile search for information or content access and retrieval. Given the rapid evolution of mobile devices and networks in recent years, they would be justified in thinking that mobile search would provide slick interfaces and accurate results. But in most cases they would be disappointed. While search on the Internet has revolutionised how we access information, the same is not true of mobile search. This is still in its infancy, and the typical user experience leaves much to be desired. Article

Report: Mobile money in emerging markets still fragile but ready to become a mass-market service by 2014

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:55:01 -0400

A new report from Ovum is said to reveal activity in mobile payment services--and more broadly mobile money services--is accelerating in many emerging markets. The report, 'Mobile money in emerging markets', says the market is still in its infancy, yet it has the potential to become a mass-market service, penetrating one-third of all mobile users in emerging markets in five years' time. However, much will hinge on how well the industry addresses various market barriers, and its ability to nurture user demand with clear, simple and attractive propositions, it claims.

The mobile money market has accelerated in the last two years in emerging markets, mostly in more mature markets. “The success of Vodafone's Kenya subsidiary Safaricom with its mobile money service M-Pesa has underlined the potential for mobile money services,” said Angel Dobardziev, co-author of the report. Yet, despite more than 100 launches of mobile money services by both service providers and banks globally the market remains in a fragile state with few well-established services. Article

Gloomy picture for global mobile market

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:53:13 -0400

Growth in mobile services revenues fell by 3 per cent globally in the first quarter of 2009 compared to 8 per cent in 2008, according to the latest data from Strategy Analytics. Total global revenues in Q1 2009 stood at US$163 billion. Markets across the world were affected but mature Western European operators were hardest hit with total revenues actually falling slightly by 1.3 per cent compared with growth of 0.5 per cent in 2008.

Western Europe also experienced a sharp decline in net subscriber additions which fell by 90 per cent overall with Germany, Italy and the UK all reporting declining subscriber numbers. And it is not just Western Europe according to Phil Kendall, Director, Wireless Network Strategies at Strategy Analytics, "Europe is seeing the greatest concentration of operators losing revenues at present. This used to just be an issue for the more saturated, Western half, but has now extended to Central and Eastern Europe, too."

Not surprisingly, mobile operators also spent less money in the quarter. Global capital expenditure was US$16 billion, equivalent to 14 per cent of service revenues, but this was down 1.4 per cent on the 2008 figure.

For more on this story:
go to Telecomseurope and 3g.co.uk

Consumers rate voice and SMS costs above mobile data services

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:48:38 -0400

British consumers view voice call and text prices as more important than 3G and social networking capabilities, claims research commissioned by UK based firm, OpenCloud. In a survey of 1,000 consumers, more than 80 per cent see voice call and text prices as the most important factors when looking for a new phone, whereas two-thirds of respondents view social networking applications as luxury additions and non-essential. The "My Mobile Lifestyle" survey, looking at consumer attitudes to mobile phone usage and types of services they desire, found the current economic uncertainty to be affecting the penetration of social media and 3G applications into the nation's consciousness. Respondents indicated that when mobile belt-tightening occurs, the first service to go is Internet-based applications. Article

Mobile content regulator lays down new rules

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:24:57 -0500

As a result of a year-on-year increase of more than 100 per cent in the number of mobile-related complaints, the UK's premium content regulator PhonepayPlus has issued tough new rules.

The most significant of these is that anyone signing up to a subscription service which charges more than £4.50 (US$6.25) in any given week (including joining costs) must first receive, and reply to, a free confirmation message outlining the cost and conditions of the service. In addition, any content provider who wants to offer mobile subscription services for more than £4.50 a week or wanting to apply pay-per-page charges must first apply for permission from PhonepayPlus. Content providers must also clearly display prices in any advertising for a service and they cannot label a service "free" unless there truly are no costs involved.

PhonepayPlus also has ruled companies cannot sell or trade third party marketing lists unless those on the list have agreed to receive promotional messages. All subscription and promotional messaging services must respond to the "stop" command. Premium mobile services are used by hundreds of thousands of customers daily and the majority of these services operate without problems. However, apparently some companies have adopted practices which have created increased complaints from customers.

The Mobile Entertainment Forum, the industry body for content providers, said whilst it was still studying the proposals it was not convinced the new regulations achieved anything that wasn't possible under the previous Code of Practice.

For more on this story:
- go to Moconews and Mobile Europe

Related stories:
British regulators launch mobile content inquiry
Regulatory review of mobile content premium rate services
The year ahead: Mobile content predictions sure to go wrong

Simpler phones will boost uptake of services

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:38:22 -0500

The complexity of today's mobile phones is inhibiting the uptake and usage of applications and services, says a new survey. Almost 100 per cent of the UK and US consumers questioned say they would be more likely to try new mobile services if the setting-up procedure was simpler.Some 45 per cent of consumers said complex set-up issues were the reason they had not upgraded to new and more sophisticated mobile phones. Apparently 61 per cent said setting up a mobile phone was as complicated and frustrating as trying to change a bank account.

Clearly this is an issue that mobile operators and phone vendors need to address if they are to boost uptake of the key revenue-generating services and applications currently being rolled out. Some 78 per cent of those surveyed said they would change their phones more regularly if the set-up process was less painful and 61 per cent reported they had stopped using mobile applications because they could not solve the problems they present.

Other survey results showed even basic services like email, instant messaging and Internet browsing don't always work when consumers first switch on their phones. Matthew Bancroft, vice president of Mformation who sponsored the survey, commented "With the current economic climate, operators and device manufacturers need to remove barriers to service uptake. The message from consumers is that phone setup is simply too complex."

For more on this story:
- go to Mobile Europe and Telecomredux

Related stories:
Americans can't live without mobile services
The lifeblood of the mobile operator industry: Service Innovation

Mobile payments facility launched in Norway and Sweden

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 11:09:45 -0500

Mobile users in Norway and Sweden are now able to buy products and services over the mobile Internet following the introduction of Dialogue's mobile billing services. Dialogue Communications is now offering cross-network mobile payment services for all vendors selling products and services over the mobile web in the two countries.

The WAP billing solution is currently only available for one-off purchases. The mobile payment framework, which is available in Norwegian and Swedish versions, allows customers to design their own mobile Internet sites and charge customers directly to their mobile phone bill.

For more on this story go to Mobile Europe

Kick starting the LBS market

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:36:40 -0500

A decade ago location-based services (LBS) seem to tick all the boxes for mobile operators in terms of revenue generation but to date LBS has failed to deliver on its promise. Revenues from LBS are minute compared to other mobile services and growth is very slow. This might be set to change. According to SIM card vendor Sagem Orga the key stumbling block holding back LBS has been the lack of affordable and accurate positioning technology. Now Sagem Orga has joined forces with BlueSky Positioning to resolve this issue by integrating A-GPS positioning technology on to SIM cards for the first time. The two companies are planning to incorporate a GPS receiver and proprietary antenna into SIM cards enabling operators to deploy LBS applications without the need for software or hardware upgrades.

For more on this story go to Mobile Europe and Telecomredux

Related articles:
Forecast: 82M location-based mobile social networkers by 2013
Location-based services mean business--enterprise applications on the rise

Service Innovation - The lifeblood of the mobile operator industry

paul rasmussen — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:22:01 -0400

Over the coming years European residents will be looking for better value and more innovative services from mobile operators. While the Pan-European MVNOs will focus more on providing services with wide appeal, such as music and location, there will be a healthy and growing market for mobile services that strongly attract a niche market.

Designing services that can appeal to and retain a niche audience requires special skills and originality. Accepting that the larger operators will continue to strive for new and exciting services, better examples of innovation are typically more evident within European MVNOs.