Sony Ericsson is growing fast

iSuppli released its latest report on the handset market this week. The big news is that Nokia is still the worlds biggest handset maker, and Sony Ericsson its most successful when you look at the growth numbers.

"Sony Ericsson is targeting its entire product line at the mid-to-high range of the market and just recently has started entering the emerging low-cost handset market,” said Tina Teng, wireless communications analyst at iSuppli. “This has contributed to the company’s accelerated growth in 2006. Plus, Sony Ericsson’s products appeal to every regional market globally, because its camera- and music-enabled phones hit the sweet spot in terms of desirable handset features.”"

Now the interesting thing for me is that iSuppli looks at the electronic components supply chain to get its intelligence. The data they provide that does interest me is the reference points on how much individual handsets cost in terms of bill of materials. But how do they work out that a handset manufacturer is developing a stockpile for a new product rather than building its current models? I for one will await the updated numbers from M:Metrics to see what the gap is between the two reports before making too many claims about the fall of Motorola and Samsung for example.

Who you going to talk to?

Yesterday having attended the funeral of one of my extended family I was asked by a number of those in attendance to help with their mobile phones as I was someone who "knows about these things."

The interesting discovery for me was that very few had done the research that Ged did when he decided to leave Orange. Most of these "happy soles" are using Pay As You Go because they think it offers the best value for money because those that they know have usually been unable to use ALL of the minutes and texts on there tariff and so they see them as wasting money rather than saving on call costs. I just wonder if the Networks are hearing the same message but are happy to ignore it whilst they battle it out for the best churn numbers in this mature market.

In talking yesterday it became obvious that those in the room had started to not trust what they were told by the retailers after my outburst last year when One of them called to tell me that she had upgraded to Flext because that was what the man in the shop said was the best contract on offer. After I had gone through just what she does do with her phone she returned the handset and cancelled the contract. I wonder what those in the room would have made of Keith's excellent analysis of CPW's numbers? I am sure that he would have been interested in the way that the consumer is starting to wise up when it comes to buying mobile. I for one think that what I am hearing from Vodafone at present is the right idea I am just not confident that they can execute the strategy with the current team.

My 2p worth on the iPhone

Rather than post this at the time of Steve Jobs announcement that Apple had joined the handset market I decided to wait and see what others had to say before adding to the noise.

What I know about the new phone has been gathered from the Internet and Press rather than me actually seeing the device at MacWorld. Carlo and Russell have done a good job looking at the launch of the phone and others comments. Ajit over at Open Gardens has done his usuall meta analysis of the situation. Ged at Renaissance Chambara says that like all Apple fan boys his thinks that the new phone is sexy it is not for him.

I think that what Jobs has done is disruptive but I do not think that Nokia and Sony Ericsson needs to worry too much about this first release. My hope is that the launch of the iPhone will effect the way that Mobile Networks deal with User Interfaces. I think that as a closed system rather than a smartphone what Apple have done is launch a niche handset for the US market. As such I do not think that the iPhone will get a market share much larger than either the Blackberry or WindowsMobile.

Working with Mobile Networks as I do I have to say that they have issues supporting all the formats and operating systems that they do at present adding another will increase the complexity by another factor. Just look at the number of people who have complained about the lack of support for Treo handsets and ask why would Apple be any different?

I think that in a months time we will see a number of new handsets that will make the iPhone look very dated and this will mean that the iPhone becomes something akin to the Mottorola Razr i.e. the Fashion Victims handset where form out does function. This being the point I fear that I might just be buying two when the launch so that my twins can fit in at their new school.

It looks like the the Independent has the same view as me. Hamish McRae says that Apple's entry into the phone industry will not change the market, its innovation might! The more I chat with others the more my opinion crystalises. I do not think that we can expect to see Apple replace Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Samsung at the top of the tree after all we are talking about ONE handset. The fact that are in the market might however finally force Motorola to do something about its appalling user interface. Apple could force Sony Ericsson and Nokia to take their A Game to the networks and insist that customisation of the interface is no more than the placing of short cuts onto a phone. A word of caution for Apple has to be that the list of those who no longer make handsets is very long and if they are not careful they will join it.

Mobile Phone uptake is bigger than everything!

Over at Communities Dominate Brands Tomi Ahonen has started the year with an article on just how big 2.7B mobiles mean in terms of technology uptake. Tomi spells out just how big mobiles have become in terms of other technologies and time.

The best part is Tomi's evangelism of just what the adoption of mobile has achievied and how they are aspirational.

Mobile's as a tool of social change in Africa

This week is Geek Week on Newsnight and to start things off Paul Mason presented on how Kenyan's have adopted mobile on mass.

An informative film sees Mason travel along the main highway. We saw M-Pesa demonstrated by the Vodafone partner Safaricom which saw Mason being paid by text and him cashing it in. Mason was impressed and said that in a country that has few users of bank accounts it could revolutionise things.

On his travels Mason sees a farmer using his phone to check prices in Nairobi before selling his produce locally. The most impressive for me was when Mason went down into the Masai farmland. Talking to a teacher we discover that she has a phone and that she bought another for the tribesman that looks after her cattle so that she can check on her goats health. She went on to explain that in her region over half the men have phones and they are charged via solar panels. The upside is that thanks to text messages the Massi are starting to learn to read. The downside is that husbands and wifes now row over who has been calling the phone!

The headline is when someone from a University says that the success of mobile is showing people that Kenya is not a basket case. If the phones have been launched so quickly why is the road and water systems such failures after sixty years of aid funded development. Mason demonstrates this with a clip on how the people in the largest shantty town are using flash mob tactics to stop evictions.

Voice! It is all about Voice!

I have been looking at some of the projects that I undertook last year and some of the new ones for this and once again I have to say that everyone in the Mobile industry seems to forget that it's about VOICE .

I have now been using 3G for over two years and the biggest disappointment is not that the Web2.0 services are slow to take off, it is the fact that others ask if I am calling them whilst I am on the toilet as the call quality is so poor! I had hoped that the work I undertook at the time of the spectrum bids would see the light of day by now. Talking over coffee with others and it seems that the issue is once again one of legacy, what is the point of giving me a device with excellent voice if the person I am calling is still using a handset that is four years old?

I have to say that unlike the switch to colour displays the failings of voice are more urgent. When I next get the opportunity to talk with Senior Executives in the Operators it's my intention to raise the issue of call quality. The reason that people are not happy to substitute mobile minutes for fixed is not about price it is because having a conversation over 3 minutes on a Mobile can result in a headache. This has nothing to do with microwaves and everything to do with the quality of the network and bandwidth given to voice. Just as I have been prepared to invest in a better set of headphones for my MP3 player so that it is enjoyable to listen to music as I travel, I would invest in a handset that improves the voice quality.

Talking with people at Sony Ericsson it is not a question of poor technology in the handset. The issue is with the network where planning is at fault when it comes to voice.

Once Orange believed in a wirefree life which saw Voice at the centre of the offering. At this time they invested in a company called Wildfire and made a promotional video call "Adam and Eve" they sent out Evangelists to promote the view that we would soon have a relationship with them based on Voice. They had a vision that saw the mobile phone as a remote for our life, they said that one day soon we would be able to do this with something as small as a stud in your ear. Then they stopped believing and lost there way and decided that what we needed was not hope but training!

Why to I believe that Voice is the future? Well in looking at E-Plus in Germany you see a CEO who has put voice at the centre of his strategy. He does not believe that the future as mobile data services and as such has declined to invest in new equiupment. He says what is needed is to get the customer to buy and then use the phone in their hand. His idea has won him new customers and hurt his rivals so he might just have something right. I hope to be able to test his service in the next few months when I am working in Germany to see if he can make the voice quality issue that I have here go away.

Pulp Fiction on your phone

Wired reports on the craze for fiction written on phones for phone users. This is something that I think we could only see in Japan the thought that some blogger from England would write one novel in 14 months let alone the five authored by the profiled Chaco is something that I think is unlikely.

This is something that I intend to look at in more detail and hope to be able to develop with a few clients as I see such citizen publishing as one way of using Camera Phones and MMS. I think that such activities may well see the rise of peer-to-peer in mobile especially as some of the more widely read mobile novels are of the racy varrity. I just hope that some of the self help guru's don't see such an enterprise as an extension of the brand in a similar fashion as ebooks and blogs.

So tell me again just why you think non voice is the way forward!

The Times has a report of an IT Specialist who managed to burn his way through £950 in just four days thanks to watching Mobile TV for just two hours on his 3G handset. These two quotes just go to show why I fear that convergence is just a Marketing teams pipe dream.

"Our technology has run away from our tariffs and we are taking action,"
said a spokesman from O2!

"There are about 7m 3G phone users in Britain according to Mobileshop.com, an online retailer, but only 10% have tariffs allowing for unlimited downloads."

Latest development on Google phone.

The Observer ran a piece on how Google and Orange could soon be getting together to launch a new handset that is based on Google software within an Orange Smartphone. Now the idea is that you will be able to search the web wherever you are!

But guys, I can already do that today on my Orange handset thanks to Opera Mini. What makes Orange think that working with Google they can make it any easier. It is not the case with T-Mobile's Web'n'Walk solution that I have on another phone. In fact it is so poor that I bye pass it and use Opera Mini.

If I was advising Orange I am affraid that I would have to say if you want to get back to the good old days with the Brand invest in Customer Service! What the networks need to do is work on get the number of minutes of use up befoe thinking that they can grab back losed revenues from getting us to surf the web on our mobiles.

Last week I conducted a little experiment with everyone I saw using the same handset as mine. Most of them had the handset for less than two months, none of them were using any data services as they saw them as too expensive. When I asked why the had selected the handset all said because it had a great camera. Asked what they did with the photos they took all said that they stayed on the handset as they were yet to work out the best way to transfer them, but they were not going to use the networks email or mms based solutions as they were too expensive. One did say that her son had uploaded a few picutures to ebay and that they were impressed at the quality.

No if this not very scientific study showed that a number of professionals were happy to have the technology but were not using the technology as they saw it as a rip off then any plan that involves getting people to use data services is flawed. I think that if I were running a mobile network the first thing I would seek to do is build trust with my customers then once they saw thet I was not about to rip them off start to rollout non voice based services. Telling the press and analysts that you have a compelling data service that has done well in trials might be good for short term PR but it does not put money in the bank!

On another note when your brand is tarnished don't expect that you can benefit from the glow of the new Brand darling all that it will do is show how dim your star has become. FT are better off fixing the problems within Orange than looking at how they can make money from getting its customers to watch adverts on their phones.

This year I want....

Dear CEO of my Mobile Network,

It has been a great year and I have bene a very good boy. I have stayed loyal to you and when I did upgrade my handset I did so direct rather than accept the wonderful offers from the Upgrade Centre.

So can I ask for just a few things at this time of year?

Firstly I will like you to spend some of your budget on improving the network coverage for you 3G service. I am starting to get upset by the fact that those around me with the same handset get a better signal on their network when I have no coverage. What is the solution? Could it be that you share basestations in order to overcome planning permission issues. I would be happy to place a pico cell on to my broadband connection at home if that means that my phone works at home and if others want to take advantage for the improved coverage that's fine by me!

Next can I ask that you look at Customer Service within your business, the fact that when I have had to call I end up having to send your EA an email in order to get something makes me think that you are more interested in dumb customers than high spending individuals. When I joined your network you had a reputation for excellent customer service but over the last few years you seem to have given up. Perhaps it is time to once engage engage with those of us that have taken out a contract with you. I am sure that the money invested in changing a few process will pay dividends when it comes to ARPU and if we the customer are spending more you will not have to engage in a cost cutting program.

Finally can you stop trying to control my content when it comes to mobile data? Standing in one of your stores a few months ago the hip geek said that he would install Opera Mini on my device so that I could use my handset just as I do my laptop. I use another software add on so that I can once again send the high quality pictures on my phone to my blog; something that SE thought I would do as I have a 3G handset but you decided to remove when you customised the OS.

What chance that my wishes will come true?















Well lets just say that as I am fat enough to play Santa and in a few more years all the hair on my head will be Grey and so I know the truth about how my three girls get all they ask for on Christmas day.

Operators Unite To Build New Mobile Market

Today a GSM Association Press Release tells us that 40% of the Mobile Networks have come together to work on NFC as the solution for Mobile Payments alongside the Equipment manufacturers. My first reaction was NOOOOOOOOOOOO. What about the fact that the last time we saw Mobile Networks work on an interoperable standard we got the failure to launch service that was SIMPAY!

A few shots of coffee later, and I have become a little calmer. This is something under the remit of the trade association and at the moment they are just looking at standards to make the service work. One of the key goals is to build on a secure billing and identity relations that operators have with their customers through the SIM card. I guess this is going to be one of the hardest elements to crack in the development of standards as the system will have to work with the complex relationships between a number of software platforms.

Just hope that Vodafone will see the service for something other than Mobile Ticketing as it has already done in Germany with RMV earlier this year.

Carnival of the Mobilists 53 is Out

This week it is the turn Of C Enrique Ortiz to edit the Carnival, and he has been kind enough to include my post last week about MobIle Monday's 1st birthday in London. I wonder if this means that I might get some answers to what is Voice2.0?

Anyway click on the title and go and read some of the best writing on mobile on the web over the last seven days.

allAfrica.com: Kenya: Safaricom to Revolutionise Microfinance

Vodafone Kenya has joined the money transfer trend in M-Payments. The Mobile payment solutions in South Africa and the Philipines see the majority of large payments being made at the expense of Western Union.

I wonder if we will see the same increase in banking uptake as Standard Bank has seen in South Africa. The Economist reported that the launch of payments by MTN has seen over 700,000 people have joined the banking system. It will be interesting to see if once again it will be the mobile phone that extends the middle class in the emerging markets.

MoMo London is One year old

Last night I attended my fourth MoMo London event, it was also the groups first birthday and one of the three previous I had attended was the launch at Vodafone's offices last November.

Over the last year via MoMo I have made a number of new contacts as well as refreshed a number of others made from the dot com boom days at the turn of the century when I was active in Digital People. Interestingly the quality of MoMo is higher than a number of networks, in that a number of senior industry players attend not just to speak but also to listen, for which great qudos has to go to the band of five behind the group.

Last night we had a number of presentations from Bloggers some I knew and others I had only read thanks to Carnival of the Mobilists etc. All had something of interest to say to lesser or greater extents, but guys why do you need to use powerpoint? The last speak was Paul Goode from m:metrics who had a ton of interesting nuggets gained from the companies research. The soundbite from the night for me is that the average balance on a prepaid phone is less than £4, this goes someway to show just why mobile data services are slow to launch. I guess we can put those plans for mobile2.0 back in the draw for a few more years if thats what we are wishing to retire on.

They question I would have liked to ask but did not get the opportunity to was this, Should we not forget that what we have in our hands is a telephone and as such what will VOICE2.0 look like?

Looking forward to attending some of the events for 2007. Have to say that Shannon Maher and his team at Google London did yet another excellent job in hosting, its just a shame that someone from Orange/T-Mobile/O2/Nokia/Ericsson/Qualcomm does not have the ability to throw open the doors the way he has twice in the last year!

Mobile banking in South Africa

The Economist has a feature on how Mobile's have ment that most South Africans now have bank accounts. In just over a year 500,000 people have signed up for a Bank Account. These people are not the traditional middle class who were enfranchised this is the half of the population who do not have a bank account.

My observation is that with more and more people now using mobiles for banking when are we going to see a useable service on our handsets here in Western Europe? M-Pay has to be about more than just buying content off a portal. When will Orange let me pay for my film tickets rather than send me a voucher to get a second ticket for free?

Carphone told it must change to stay on top!

The Sunday Times Business Section has a detailed article on how Vodafone's cancellation of its contract might be good for the retailer. Having interviewed a number of "senior executives" Paul Durman has done a good job in analyzing the fact that CPW's success has come at the expense of friction with their suppliers, its just a shame that he seems unable to get anyone to go on the record.

I surpass the question is will Charles Dunstone understand that the last 17 years worth of success has been a result of the fact that his customers have been the mobile networks rather than the "punters" who walk into one of his 700+ stores? Or will he be able to find others desperate to take over the Vodafone contracts on his customer database as they become available at the end of the 12 month contract terms?

The article out lines that Virgin Mobile are "keen" on getting their hands on Vodafone's former contract customers. I wonder if the Vodafone customers are keen to experience the "customer" service of NTL?

Chiltern Railways trials SMS mobile phone tickets - Retail

Chiltern Railways have started a trial of e-ticketing sent to passengers' mobiles. I hope to be able to try this service over the next few weeks as Chiltern Railways provide the trains that run almost to time when I have to go into London rather than LUs' Met Line.

The only issue seems to be that you pirchase the tick online, but I guess phase two might allow M-Payment. Then again looking how expensive a train ticket is my ARPU figures would go through the roof if Orange were to allow me to pay via my contract.

Watch this space I'll post an update when I have tested the system.

Operators must cut costs!!!!!!

Mark Newman justifies his Thought Leader title over at Informa Group. With a well argued feature on what were the drivers behind the Vodafone CPW split.

He states that the issue in a market in which everyone who wants a phone has one is churn and the high cost of SACs. Over the last few months conversations with other Consultants has shown that the networks are currently running at SACs of €6 billion in the larger markets in Europe BEFORE advertising. Hence the networks current efforts to get as many as possible onto a contract at that contract to last as long as possible.

The new mantra is CLV when it comes to judging the value of a customer. It is no longer about my ARPU or MOU as with margins falling these metrics are not likely to give a network a view on my value.

The issue that I have with the cost reduction strategy currently in play. What will hold back the drive to cut costs is that fact that Vodafone is a twenty plus year old business and as such has a vast legacy system. It is this legacy anchor that is stopping networks moving forward.

What stopped O2 from following the others leaders in the UK towards the adoption of 3G services? It was not the fact that the Executive did not have a desire to jump into broadband wireless services. It's the fact that its billing system is a basket case and as such its has forced the Executives to manage the assets better than rivals!

I am sure that Vodafone has the same issues when it comes to legacy systems holding back the delivery of services that might just cause customers to increase spending.

With Orange and T-Mobile the businesses are only teenagers but as a parent I know too well what that means in terms of growing pains.

So my question to those working in the Networks is this, what are you going to do to remove the issue of legacy systems? In talking to some of the brighter guys, the issue does not seem to be IMS because that will take too long to come to market but rather SDP. The Network at present with the benchmark for SDP seems to be TurkCell who have something that a large number of others can only wish for when it comes to a blackbox that makes all the new and old stuff work.

For the rest out there I guess what the CEO needs to start talking about at investor presentations is the need to resolve the "legacy anchor" with a Y2K type approach that says we have to stop rushing forward to new technology and do some housekeeping if we are to become more than just a dumb pipe because if we keep going on at this rate thats all we will be able to do. Now which of the Networks has a CEO brave enough to tell the truth?

Why MMS is struggling worldwide

i-mode Business Strategy asks why has MMS failed to take off. The post has a few things that ring true with me and my experiences with my K800i and Orange.

The issue is if I sellect a handset that is aimed at heavy photo users what makes the network think I am going to cut them down just to send them to people who cannot open the file and if they do its two small to see.

If you look at what happened in the days when photography was done on film rather than digital. The user took paper copies of the photos and passed them around friends over a coffee. Now how does a mobile network think that MMS replicates such a service?

I guess that MMS might start to take off if what you are sharring is video. In this week when the kids are on half term holidays from school I am getting short films from them sent via wifi shot with my Nokia N93. This is a time shift service that allows me to be in two places at once. The success of YouTube has shown that others also see the point of sharing video. Who knows as the mobile networks get more people with 3G handsets they might just manage to relaunch MMS as they have managed to turn round the poor perception of mobile data services over the last few years.

However I think that none of these services will take off until you see data bundles sold as part of the main contract. E-Mail also needs to be rolled out in a similar manner to that which we see from Vodafone in Spain using Visto as the tool that gets the users to experience the data services.

Now you can go shopping with your mobile phone

The Guardian technology section has this story on how soon I will be able to replace my Oyster card with a new mobile phone.

The writter does not ask if the solution will work across all the Mobile Networks or will I have to hope that Orange as the only "London" based operator wins the contract?

Last year I met with a Chinese firm that had technology that was being used in China it hoped would be of interest to TfL and the operators. So it might after some 18 months now being set up for a trial.

Some of the handset guys are starting to talk about NFC in something more than roadmap terms, which means that they see a market for this. Google says that one of the lead projects for its mobile service is the integration of checkout solutions in an attempt to make shopping easier on your phone.

Just wonder if the network get how/why payments are important. The failure to launch SIMPAY, the small size of the M-Payments market compared to e-commerce both make me think that it will be the operators that are the major block on this. For the last two years I have worked with a number of people in the payments industry who were/are looking for mobile adoption. Most of them have become less interested in the area in terms of developed economies thanks to the Mobile Networks not wishing to enter the payments market.

I guess we will have to see what happens when the mobile replaces the credit card in terms of micro payments. at worse it might just speed up the que at Starbucks if the retail banks are happy to allow such services.