Mobile Industry is Shifting to Vertical, Rather than Horizontal Revenue Opportunities

It would be a reasonable assumption that many emerging revenue opportunities for mobile service providers are of the "vertical," rather than "horizontal" type. In other words, services for specific industry verticals (automobiles, home security, energy, transportation) will drive new revenue opportunities, not generic horizontal applications such as "broadband access" or voice or messaging. 

Some might consider Sirius XM a play on "radio," the analogy being that Sirius XM is to radio as cable TV is to broadcast TV. But Sirius XM also is a vertical play on the automobile vertical, as growth traditionally is driven by "car-deployed" receivers. 

Much activity at AT&T and Verizon, as well as other service providers, now is shifting to vertical, rather than horizontal apps. 

The three areas AT&T is emphasizing at its developer conference indicate the areas AT&T believes are fruitful new revenue sources for the company. "Digital Life" is for the moment highly focused on home automation applications that work with user mobile devices. 


"Mobile Payments" suggests another area AT&T considers fruitful, and obviously will include the Isis mobile wallet system, and probably future mobile commerce elements as well.

The "Connected Car" initiative illustrates the new role of the automotive vertical in thinking about new machine-to-machine initiatives.  


Verizon also thinks the "connected car" market is an important part of the broader machine-to-machine business.