Tuenti, Telefonica’s Social Network, Launches Globally

Few tier-one global telcos have taken the over the top application opportunity as seriously as  Telefónica.  


Telefónica Digital believes it can develop significant businesses beyond  connectivity services. The unit expects to drive annual revenues of approximately €5 billion for Telefónica by 2015 with an annual revenue growth rate of 20 percent revenue growth, 


Among those efforts is Telefónica's Tuenti, a Spanish social network with 13 million users, is launching a global beta version, including a web application (www.tuenti.com), a web app optimized for mobile (m.tuenti.com), and native applications for Android and BlackBerry. Applications for iPhone and Windows Phone will be available in the coming weeks.

 

This marks the beginning of Tuenti’s international expansion, now available in six new languages (German, French, Italian, Dutch, Slovak, and Czech) in addition to the already existing Spanish, English, Portuguese, Catalan, Basque, and Galician versions. 

Telefonica’s footprint spans both mobile and fixed operations across Europe and Latin America, covering 25 countries and 309 million users,

How Big is the Unified Communications, Collaboration Market?

In 2011, the worldwide net or "true unified communications market was $2.7 billion, up 20 percent from 2010, according to Blair Pleasant, COMMfusion LLC president. Pleasant is one of the more-careful analysts where it comes to unified communications and collaboration markets. 


The problem is that "UC" includes lots of capabilities that customers might buy simply as "point solutions" or stand-alone systems that are not fully "unified," as the term UC implies. 



The "Total UC-capable market," as Pleasant defines it, includes the total end-user revenues attributed to all of the UC components, including IM/presence, unified messaging, conferencing (not including end points), call control/IP PBX, and “other,” including softphones, business process integration software and APIs, she notes. 


That might add up to about $12.2 billion in 2011, up eight percent from 2010, growing to $20.8 billion in 2016, Pleasant says. 


"These numbers don’t necessarily represent the true UC market, however," says Pleasant. "If someone purchases an IP PBX and a conferencing/collaboration product, even if they’re from the same vendor, does this constitute a UC sale?"


"Not necessarily," she says. 


To be sure, UC is vitally important to service providers and others in some parts of the communications business. But in a global market that generates $2 trillion annually, that is a relatively small segment of the business, really. 


That is not to say it is unimportant to any number of interests in the ecosystem. It is to say the business is fragmented and a specialist niche, from a "total revenue" perspective. 



The component growing at the highest compound annual growth rate is conferencing and collaboration, growing at 50 percent CAGR, she says. 

Mobile Remote Payments Activity Doubles

Mobile payments, especially of the "remote payment" variety, have more than doubled over the last year, and are used by 33 percent of consumers surveyed by IDC Financial Insights. Of those consumers that had made a mobile payment, more than half used PayPal Mobile (56 percent), with Amazon Payments and Apple's iTunes service statistically tied at about 40 percent. 


For the most part, that activity was centered around purchases of virtual goods on a remote basis, especially digital downloads of apps and music. Still, IDC notes, more respondents reported buying physical goods with their phones than online services, digital goods, or virtual currency, IDC reports. 

What Would an Amazon Smart Phone Mean?

Amazon.com Inc. is testing a smart phone, the Wall Street Journal reports, though it isn't clear Amazon definitively has concluded to market such a device. If Amazon does decide to get into the smart phone business, which one might characterize as yet one more way Amazon is trying to create a massive installed base of content consumption devices, that move could come late in 2012 or early in 2013.


The ramifications could be significant, though it also has to be noted that would-be contenders in the tablet and smart phone markets stumble frequently enough that it isn't so clear what the impact might be. 


Aside from the obvious matter of greater competition in the mobile device market, any such move by Amazon would change strategic thinking at rival firms. It might go without saying that a robust content or app ecosystem now has become an important part of the value proposition for tablets and smart phones. 


An Amazon entry into the smart phone business would heighten that aspect of the competitive landscape. Where Google and Apple have been competing in both "apps" and content, Amazon would add a new potential niche of sorts for content-driven competition. 


In fact, that might be one of the more-important implications. Where mobile service providers have competed on the basis of value and price for a basket of features anchored by voice and text services, handset suppliers have competed on the basis of application richness.


Amazon conceivably could create yet another approach or segment of the market oriented around content consumption, with a heavy slant on books, magazines and printed content, rather than music or video. 


For Amazon, the fact the voice communications and messaging are available would be only a part of a value bundle anchored by content consumption.


For service providers, the bigger concern might be that any such Amazon move could prompt a response by Google or Apple, Facebook or some other entity that similarly might change the traditional mobile services context. What any of those competitors could do is redefine "what" mobile service "is," and what features are part of mobile service. 

Perhaps 56% of U.S. "Tweens" Have Their Own Mobile Phones

There are relatively few human beings left in the United States who do not have their own mobile phones, a new study suggests.

One measure of the popularity of mobile phones is the near-ubiquity of mobile usage among “tweens” between eight and 12. Some 56 percent of respondents surveyed by ORC International say they have purchased cell phones for their young children, ranging from a high of 62 percent in households earning over $100,000 a year and a low of 41 percent in households under $50,000 a year.

Some 81 percent of parents of tweeners put their child on a contract-based mobile phone plan and 15 percent use a prepaid cell phone service. Some 84 percent of parents added a tween user to an existing family plan, the study found.

These days, communications is an attribute of many devices, but especially mobile phones that arguably have become the preferred way people use voice communications. And other data reinforces the notion that teenagers overwhelmingly use mobile communications as their primary communications method.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project, for example, shows 54 percent of people 12 to 17 send text messages. Only 38 percent say they “call.”

DirecTV to Drop 26 Viacom Channels?

Contract negotiations between video service providers and programmers often go right to the brink of "channels going dark" before new carriage agreements are reached, and that might be the case for on-going discussions between DirecTV and Viacom.


Viacom’s distribution agreement with DirecTV is set to expire at midnight on Tuesday, July 10. Viacom says it has been negotiating for months but hasn't reached an agreement on a new contract. 


In part, that might be because Viacom claims DirecTV wants lower ratse than Viacom receives from any other distributor in the industry. 


So it remains possible that nearly 20 million DirecTV subscribers will be without 26 Viacom channels, including Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, BET, VH1, CMT, Spike TV, TV Land, if a new agreement is not reached. 


Most often, though, some last-minute accommodation is reached. Still, the escalating number of disputes between distributors and programmers illustrates growing financial tension within the video subscription business. 


At least some consumers are finding they don't value subscription video as much as they used to. In other cases, especially with a growing percentage of Millennials, the value isn't high enough to convince them to subscribe, even when those consumers can afford to do so.

But affordability is a growing problem. Bernstein Research Senior Analyst Craig Moffett has argued that "after the necessities of food, shelter, transportation and healthcare each month, the bottom 40 percent of U.S. households have already exhausted all of their disposable income."

"There is," he says. "nothing left for clothing, for debt service, for cable or for phone."


That will put increasing pressure on service providers to hold the line on retail pricing or even reduce it. That will require any number of changes. Service providers can create modified and cheaper tiers of service, can drop whole channels, pay programmers less or cut some marketing expenses. 


Ultimately, the need to limit channels, and therefore operating costs, will be become a necessary step, unless programmers decide to yield on per-subscriber fees. In order for some networks to do that, the networks themselves will have to stop paying program creators as much as they presently do, as well. 


Up to a point, programmers and distributors will not want to upset a business model that has worked very well. But if the business model starts to crack, historically unusual steps will have to be taken.

T-Mobile USA Wrongly Slams Verizon Wireless "Share Everything"

The Verizon Wireless ’s "Share Everything" plans are "costly, complicated and punitive,"  T-Mobile USA argues. Using T-Mobile USA's own comparison, those complaints seem overblown. T-Mobile argues users can save "up to" $40 a month, for a customer who pays full retail for their new device. Under a standard contract plan, the savings might be $20 a month.


The same logic applies for plans with two or three users on a single account. For a three-device (smart phone) account, monthly savings for a user on contract, with subsidized phones, is only about $10 a month. Roughly the same difference exists for two-device accounts, with T-Mobile USA users saving about $10 a month, compared top a Verizon Wireless Share Everything plan.


That wouldn't strike some of us as especially "costly." Nor does it seem "complicated" or "punitive." There is a small difference. But not much. 

Is E-Commerce More Important in Developing Markets than in Developed Markets?

E-commerce might be more important for consumers in developing nations than in developed nations, according to Capgemini researchers. 


In developing markets, the study said the percentages were higher but that at least one third of the respondents in more developed markets agreed with the assessment. Developing nations don't have the retail shopping infrastructure that developed markets do. 


Paris-based consulting firm Capgemini found that more than half of shoppers globally think more physical stores will become merely showrooms by 2020. 


According to the report, which was based on interviews with 16,000 consumers from 16 countries, 51 percent of respondents said that, in the next eight years, they expect retail locations to be showrooms for selecting and ordering products. 

Tablet Screen Size is a Bit Like Mobile Cell Size: Highly Non-Linear

Tablet screen size is a bit of a non-linear matter, though it often seems as though it is quite linear. More accurately, screen size and mobile cell coverage area are "linear," but not on a 1:1 basis. 


The typical rule of thumb for decreasing a mobile cell site's coverage is that reducing radius of coverage by 50 percent requires a quadrupling of the number of sites. 


In somewhat similar fashion, an iPad "mini" of about eight inches screen diagonal would have roughly 40 percent more surface area than a seven-inch Kindle Fire or Android Tablet. Apple  might have business reasons for producing a smaller-screen device in precisely the dimensions it seems to be choosing. 

586 million LTE Devices to Ship in 2016

Some 586 million smart phones using Long Term Evolution, and 154 million network interface cards or routers will be shipped globally in 2016, according to the Marketing Intelligence and Consulting Institute. 

Global shipments of LTE terminal devices, 2012-2016 (millions of units)
	LTE smartphones	Other terminal devices  (network interface cards and routers)
2012	64	41
2013	188	69
2014	300	74
2015	440	117
2016	586	154

Source

Nokia, RIM, HTC Smart Phone Shipments Will Decline in Second Quarter of 2012

Nokia, RIM and HTC are expected to see their smartphone shipments, as well as market share, continue declining in the third and fourth quarters of 2012, according to a report. 


Despite efforts initiated by Nokia, RIM and HTC to fend off competition from Apple and Samsung Electronics, RIM and HTC already have reported lower than expected shipments for the second quarter of 2012, while Nokia is expected to see its second-quarter smartphone shipments drop below 10 million units. 

South Korean Telcos Will Charge for Mobile VOIP

In an illustration of the ways regulatory frameworks affect business models, the Korea Communications Commission has decided to allow mobile operators, SK Telecom, KT and LG U to charge users to use mobile VoIP.


That practice, which levies an additional fee to use a lawful application, is prohibited in the United States, not so much by network neutrality rules, but by the Federal Communications Commission's "Internet Freedoms" principles, which stipulate that users have the right to use any lawful applications after having paid for a broadband subscription giving users Internet access.


But different regulations can, and do exist, in other markets. 


The new rules appear a direct response to mobile service provider concern about over the top VoIP provider KakaoTalk, which has 36 million Korean users. There are about 50 million Korean mobile phone users.


Another issue is whether such rules will apply to other services, such as Apple's FaceTime, when those services use mobile broadband bandwidth. 

OTT Video Could Help ISPs

In some ways, growing viewership of online video by the likes of Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, iTunes and other video streaming applications and services represent both a threat and an opportunity for broadband access providers who also sell subscription video services. 


The threat obviously is the danger that consumers might shift viewing from video subscription services to over the top alternatives. Over time, that could mean fewer subscribers, and less revenue for one of the three anchor services for a triple-play services provider.


On the other hand, video represents the application with highest bandwidth requirements, so demand for bigger broadband access buckets should grow over time, and perhaps dramatically- if significant percentages of households shift a large part of their video viewing to online sources.


For pure-play broadband access providers, who do not sell video services, video provides upside, mostly, increasing demand for faster services and more consumption. 

"Project Oscar" U.K. Mobile Wallet, Mobile Payments Effort Could be Approved Soon

Vodafone, Telefonica (O2) and Everything Everywhere (Deutsche Telekom and France Télécom have been waiting for approval from the European Commission to launch a mobile wallet and mobile payments business in the United Kingdom, and approval is expected 2012, but most likely not in time for the London Olympics.


Project Oscar would provide a single platform that could be used by retailers, banks and other financial services groups, allowing mobile devices to store cash in the form of linked accounts to credit and debit card accounts, for example. 


Project Oscar also would support mobile payments using near field communications. The difference between a mobile wallet and mobile payments sometimes is subtle, but generally, a mobile wallet stores credentials, which might include loyalty program details.


A mobile payment service allows those credentials to be used at retail point of sale terminals or for online purchases. Business models also can differ. Some mobile wallet systems intend to make money supporting advertising, promotion or other marketing and loyalty programs, but not actual payment transactions, which will be handled by business partners.


Mobile payment systems generally involve a provider in the actual process of transactions, with the revenue earned from that role as a transaction provider. 


Both Isis and Google Wallet have opted for the mobile wallet approach, neither intending to be a direct payment brand, but only supporting transactions cleared by card issuers. 

One More Reason Why Phone Calls are Dropping: Companies Discourage Them

Customer service practices and attitudes might be changing in ways that actually encourage some enterprises to discourage customers or users from "calling" those enterprises. 


In fact, some might argue, when customers or users want to communicate with an enterprise, they often are discouraged from "calling," since there now is a preference for text-based messages, use of help sites or other methods that are viewed as more efficient because common questions can be handled in an automated, self service manner.


That might especially be the case for application providers. It isn't so much that phone systems cost money; it is that they are not seen as being as efficient as other forms of providing answers.  


An answer to a truly "frequently asked question" only has to be "answered" once. All subsequent "answers" are simply instances where a user reads or hears the original answer, so there are clear workforce implications. So long as nearly all questions can be answered using some "one to many" mechanism, the need for one-to-one mechanisms is reduced. 


Also, since it is easier to turn a one-to-one session into a one-to-many FAQ, phone communications do not scale, many might argue.


Of course, there are some salient reasons why such attitudes would persist, aside from the age demographics of the firms. Enterprises that try and deflect calls have indirect revenue models. 


There are, in other words, few incentives to deal with "users" who actually are not revenue producers. Advertisers are the revenue producers, and you can be sure those partners do have voice access. 


To the extent that use of indirect revenue models is growing, you can assume that the number of enterprises discouraging voice communications will grow.