Mobile Will Need to Become an "App Platform"

For European mobile operators, the next phase of business development will be about mobile service as a platform for web and other applications, displacing a more-recent phase where success hinged on new data revenues, smart phones, reducing operating costs and raising average revenue per user, says Declan Lonergan, Yankee Group analyst.

Clearly gone is the period where success could be built around text messaging, voice revenue and minutes of use.

Some executives rightly will be concerned, if only because the next phase of growth will depend on the ability to create a new revenue platform based on access and other elements of mobile service that can be sold to business partners, if not directly to end users.

Mobile Will Need to Become an "App Platform"