Over the Top Voice, Texting now Affecting Revenue for 75% of Mobile Service Providers

Over the top mobile voice and texting apps now affect traffic for almost 75 percent of mobile service providers operating in 68 countries surveyed by mobileSquared as part of a project sponsored by Tyntec.

About 52.1 percent of respondents estimate over the top mobile apps have displaced about one percent to 20 percent of traffic in 2012. That’s a clear issue since traffic lost means lost revenue as well.

Almost 33 percent of respondents expect one percent to 10 percent of their customers will
be using OTT services by the end of 2012, with 57 percent of respondents believe 11 percent to 40 percent of their customers will be using OTT services in 2012.

But 10.5 percent of service providers anticipate more than 40 percent of the user base will be using OTT services by the end of 2012.




In 2016, 100 percent of respondents believe at least 11 percent of their customers will  be using OTT services. In fact, 42 percent of operators believe that over 40 percent of their customer base will be using OTT services in 2016.

The issue is what to do about the threat. In some countries, it might be legal for mobile operators to block use of OTT apps, as some carriers blocked use of VoIP. You can make your own judgment about whether that is a long-term possibility.

There are direct and indirect ways to respond, though. It is at least conceivable that some mobile service providers can legally create separate fees for consumer use of over the top voice and messaging apps. In other cases service providers will have to recapture some of the lost revenue by increasing mobile data charges in some way.

Verizon Wireless protects its voice and texting revenue streams by essentially changing voice and texting services into the equivalent of a connection fee to use the network. Verizon charges a flat monthly fee for unlimited domestic voice and texting.

The harder questions revolve around whether any service provider should create its own OTT voice and messaging apps, even if those apps compete with carrier services. Aside from potentially cannibalizing carrier voice and data services, this approach arguably does take some share from rival OTT providers.

On the other hand, it is a defensive approach that essentially concedes declining revenue, with some amount of ability to capture revenue in the “OTT voice and messaging” space.

Some larger service providers might find they are able to consider a partnering strategy with leading OTT players. To some extent, this also is a defensive move aimed at recouping some lost voice and messaging revenues. In other words, if a customer is determined to switch to OTT voice and data, the revenue from such usage ought to flow to the mobile service provider, if possible.

But there is a notable difference to the branded carrier OTT app approach. In principle, such OTT apps can be a way of extending a brand’s service footprint outside its historic licensed areas, into countries where it is not currently licensed.

Instead of functioning as a defensive tactic that recoups some share of OTT revenue in territory, OTT voice and messaging can be viewed as an offensive way of providing voice and messaging services out of region, says Thorsten Trapp, Tyntec CTO.

Over the longer term, it might also be possible for mobile service providers to replicate the network effect that makes today’s voice and messaging so appealing, namely the ability to contact anybody with a phone, anywhere, without having to worry about whether the contacted party is “on the network” or “in the community” or not.
The RCS-e/Joyn effort is an example of that approach.

Likewise, mobile service providers might be able to create a mediating role that bridges a closed OTT community by enabling third party access to some other third party community using the mobile phone number.

A Different Take on "3 Screens"

A decade ago, the phrase "three screens" normally referred to movie theater screens, TVs and PCs, and was an attempt to capture the importance of the PC as a display device for entertainment video. 

That is not untrue, but these days the notion of three screens has other implications. Looking only at the way people consume Internet news, "three screens" now refers to the process whereby tablets, PCs and smart phones all are widely used access methods. 

Perhaps the biggest behavioral change is the shift to tablet-based consumption, which not tracks phone consumption quite closely. Sample data from the U.K. market for July 2012 suggests that tablets and phones are the most-used devices during "non-working" hours, while PC access is the most used method during workday periods. 

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Wants Focus on "Users"

At some level, you wonder whether it could really be so simple that Yahoo has to focus on its products, and what users want to do with those products, as the way out of the mess Yahoo seems to be in. At another level it seems blindingly obvious 

"I want you thinking about users," Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer repeatedly has told Yahoo workers. That tells you something about all the other strategies Yahoo has seemed to cycle through in recent years. None, apparently, focused simply on products people want to use. 

Mayer's "near-singular emphasis on products and users" is a departure, many would argue. That's probably as good a critique of the immediate past strategies as anything. Trying to better "monetize" products that don't provide clear value and a compelling reason for using those products is bound to be challenging in the extreme. 

In the end, fixing Yahoo won't be as simple as "focusing on products and users." Revenue models  still will matter. But it is refreshing to hear a simple and fundamental call to focus on user experience first. 

Over the Top Messaging is Becoming a Problem in Western Europe

Text messaging services offered by carriers face growing challenges in Western Europe, with less robust growth even in Eastern and Central European markets that had been growing faster. Virtually all observers might agree that high charges for cross-border messages are the problem that over the top messaging solves for end users. 

Affluent Asia-Pacific Mobile Users are Heavy Mobile App, Skype Users

Over the top VoIP services such as Skype are a major draw for users around the world who need to make cross-border calls, for obvious reasons. And users in China, Malaysia, Indonesia and India are no different. While much Skype usage originates and terminates on PCs, mobile usage of Skype seems might be quite prevalent as well, in those four countries.

Some 44 percent of surveyed mobile consumers with mobile Internet in Malaysia use over the top VoIP services, as do 38 percent of respondents in India, with 69 percent of VoIP-using respondents saying they use Skype, Analysys Mason says.

It isn't clear whether that refers to any use of Skype or other over the top calling apps, or the percentage who use mobile VoIP. In fact, it seems rather doubtful that mobile VoIP constitutes "most" of the Skype usage in those countries.

Much could depend on whether those relatively affluent consumers responding to the Analysys mason poll are akin to "early adopters" with behavior patterns quite different from those of mainstream users.

The impact of over-the-top (OTT) communications services, such as WhatsApp Messenger and Viber, is growing, but used unevenly.

About 11 percent of smart phone owners use mobile VoIP applications regularly, compared with only five percent of mobile users as a whole. 

Usage of over-the-top services [Source: Analysys Mason Connected Consumer Survey 2012

1 Various questions; Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, the UK and the USA; n = 7485.

Of 107 million mobile VoIP users expected by 2012, more than half will reside in North America and Europe, owing to the fact that 3G, which is required for mobile VoIP to be effective, has been rolled out in those regions, according to Juniper Research.

But Juniper Research also agrees that the Far East and China will account for most of the remaining mobile VoIP growth, followed by the rest of Asia-Pacific.



 Africa and the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and Latin America will round out the remaining growth, with roughly equal percentages, Juniper has predicted. 

“Affluent” consumers in emerging Asia–Pacific countries spend 48 percent more time using communications  and media services than those in Europe and the United States, a study by , Analysys Mason suggests. On average, survey respondents with Internet connectivity in major emerging APAC markets spent 13  hours a day using telecoms and media services, compared with 8.8 hours for consumers in Europe and the United States.

The Analysys Mason conclusions were drawn from an online survey of 4,000 consumers 18 and older in China, India, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The caveat is that the survey sample arguably over-selected for “relatively affluent” consumers, Analysys Mason notes.

On average,  total exposure to telecom and media apps and services was highest in Malaysia (14.6 hours each day), followed by Indonesia (14.2), India (13.3) and China (9.9).



The survey also found that usage of mobile content and apps was high among connected consumers, which is probably no surprise. In China some 78 percent of respondents used mobile apps, while and 79 percent of respondents in India said they use mobile apps.

More than 56 percent of survey respondents used a smart phone.

About 11 percent of respondents that buy both fixed and mobile broadband services are planning to give up their fixed broadband service, but that is balanced by13 percent of respondents that have only mobile broadband who report they are considering also buying fixed broadband.

Starbucks Adds Square for Mobile Payments

In a move that in one sense shows the scale of Starbucks mobile payments operations, and might ultimately suggest other opportunities, Starbucks is outsourcing its mobile payment operation to Square. 

Users will simply use the Pay with Square app in place of the current app. At least so far, the advantage for Starbucks might be more tactical than strategic. Some think Starbucks will get better rates on each payment, than it had been able to do using its prior in-house method.

Others might suggest that the cost of supporting the mobile payment operations has grown to the point where outsourcing that particular function makes more sense than doing it in house. 

Basically, the Pay with Square app will be used by Starbucks in a "stripped down" version, allowing users to display a Square bar code that works with the existing Starbucks bar code scanners. 

Starbucks has said nothing about using the Square credit card dongles, or changing out its current point of sale infrastructure. 

In similar fashion, many of the full Square analytics features will not be used, since Starbucks seems comfortable with its own analytics. 

But the move does suggest Starbucks sees some future upside to using Square. What isn't clear is whether that is a tactical decision, such as often made by firms when they switch from an in-house or proprietary application to a "standards-based" alternative, or something more. 

Apple, Samsung, Android Still the Story in Second Quarter 2012

Apple, Samsung and Android remain the story in the global smart phone business in the second quarter of 2012, according to IDC.

In the second quarter, Android had 68 percent market share. All other operating systems lost 15 percent market share, compared to the second quarter of 2011. 

The IDC figures also show Research in Motion's market share decline from an 11.5 percent share in 2011  to 4.8 percent over the last 12 months, Symbian dropping from 16.9 per cent to 4.4 percent.




Smartphone OS World market shares Q2 2012 and 2011

Tablets Indirectly Threaten HP's Business Model

Tablets are not a direct cause of HP's strategic disarray. PCs and the consumer hardware business arguably are the problem, clashing with HP's ability to become a pure-play enterprise services supplier. 

But tablets represent both a threat to the PC revenues and a device that relies on the cloud services that HP might alternatively focus upon. The problem remains that HP is a firm with conflicting pressures and interests. 

HP is still the biggest maker of PCs in the world – excluding tablets – but Steven Milunovich at UBS Investment Research reckons the tech giant should get rid of its PC hardware business and focus on services related to cloud computing and business products. 

Of course, that course has been at least temporarily rejected. Former CEO Leo Apotheker proposed doing so and was dumped. New CEO Meg Whitman reversed course. And now Milunovich essentially argues Apotheker was right. 

Doing two things stops HP doing either well, he argues: "HP lacks the pure enterprise focus of IBM and EMC yet will have trouble competing for consumers without strong tablet and phone businesses like Apple and Samsung," 

So, indirectly, tablets represent the latest twist in the rather lengthy story of HP vacillating about its strategy. Without a robust tablet and smart phone business, the consumer business looks vulnerable, longer term. But since the PC and printer business is about half of HP, the continual debate about remaining in the consumer and enterprise businesses 
is tough to resolve. 

U.S. Mobile Business Now is Unstable

There are growing signs that the U.S. mobile service provider market is unstable, in terms of market structure, and on the cusp of changes that could include a significant wave of provider restructuring, despite the failure of the AT&T bid to buy T-Mobile USA. 

"What is clear for now, in our view, is that the current strategy, indeed the entire current business, isn't working," said Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. Moffett seems to be referring to the whole business operated by regional U.S. wireless carriers. 

To be sure, Moffett has been saying that the U.S. mobile business is saturated since at least 2009. 

Oddly enough, to some of us the new stresses resemble the earlier transition from dial-up Internet access to broadband access. In this case, the transition is from feature phone to smart phone business models. 

In that earlier transition, many suppliers that had made a business of supplying dial-up access found they no longer could compete in the broadband business. Now, in mobile, it appears that the cost of supporting handset subsidies is pinching operating revenue, while the cost of building fourth generation networks likewise will hit earnings. 

Of the "big four" U.S. mobile carriers, only T-Mobile USA seems to have experienced a subscriber loss. 

In its second quarter of 2012, AT&T added 1.5 million net new customers. Verizon Wireless added 1.2 million net new subscribers. Sprint added postpaid net additions of 442,000 postpaid net additions. But T-Mobile USA, one the "big four" U.S. mobile service providers, lost 510,000 subscribers in the first quarter. 

The immediate stress is heavy for the regional mobile providers, often using prepaid models. 

Regional or prepaid service providers clearly have had a tougher 2012 than had been the case in the mid-2000s, for example. Leap hasn't been profitable since 2005, for example. MetroPCS profits dropped 63 percent during the first quarter of 2012.

A study undertaken by Tellabs suggests that mobile service provider profitability could become extremely challenging for some mobile operators within three years, with costs surpass revenues for many operators.

In North America that could happen by the fourth quarter of 2013 or as early as Q1 2013. Developed Asia Pacific service providers could see problems by the third quarter of 2014. In some cases this could happen as early as Q3 2013, Tellabs said. 

Service providers in Western Europe could run into trouble by the first quarter of 2015. In some cases this could happen as early as the first quarter of 2014.

Photo of Mars Rover "Curiosity" Heat Shield Dropping Away

Here's a shot of Mars Rover Curiosity dropping its heat shield on the Martian descent. Also, lots of dusty brown rocks, eh?

M2M Mobile Connections: 2.5 Billion by 2020

Mobile network machine to machine (M2M} connections will grow from 277 million in 2012 to 2.5 billion by 2020, growing at a 30 percent compound annual growth rate between now and 2020, according to Strategy Analytics.

Health, meter reading, energy management and transportation applications are expected to lead the growth.

Mobile Broadband Subscriptions for Tablets: $15 Billion Incremental Revenue in 2017

Consumers will add 150 million new data subscriptions for their tablet devices in the next five years, creating a new data access market representing $15 billion in revenue by the end of 2017, when tablet subscriptions will reach 172 million worldwide, Strategy Analytics says.

"Less than 13 percent of the global tablet installed base will have active mobile broadband service in 2012, yet in the US, both AT&T and Verizon Wireless saw tablets play a key role in net subscriber additions in the second quarter this year," says Susan Welsh de Grimaldo, Director, Mobile Broadband Opportunities (MBO) at Strategy Analytics.

Long Term Evolution will become the access technology of choice for mobile network connections, accounting for nearly 68 percent of mobile broadband tablet subscriptions by the end of 2017, Strategy Analytics says.

Tablet Users Don't "Work" on Tablets

There will be nearly 70 million tablet users in the United States by the end of 2012, an increase of more than 100 percent over 2011, eMarketer estimates.  Aside from representing the fastest-adopted digital device ever, tablet usage also shows the way digital device activities have changed since the advent of the "PC" era.

Of the top 10 or 11 categories of things people report doing on a tablet, only using email is arguably something that could sometimes be called a "work activity," most of the time.

And that also is something not specific to a tablet, as more people can use email on their smart phones, as well.

Granted, we all have been at meetings where an attendee looked something up using a browser and search engine. But those things also are done by other attendees on smart phones or PCs. The point is that PCs, smart phones and tablets all are multiple-function devices. But the lead functions of each device are distinct.

For many observers, that suggests tablets are not a "replacement" for a PC so much as an indicator of the ways digital appliances now have become content consumption vehicles. True, tablets are smarter than TVs, radios, DVRs or some older MP3 players. But they are content consumption or media players as much as anything.

For all tablet owners under age 50, playing games was the most common activity. For the youngest tablet owners, ages 18 to 29, this was followed by shopping, reading books and email.

Email had a much greater importance among 30- to 49-year-olds, who were about twice as likely to use their tablets for email purposes than were their younger counterparts.

For 50- to 64-year-olds, email was the most common tablet activity overall.

Apple Co-Founder Wozniak Thinks Cloud is a Huge Problem

"I really worry about everything going to the cloud," he said. "I think it's going to be horrendous. I think there are going to be a lot of horrible problems in the next five years," says Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder. 

The reason is not that the cloud won't work. Instead, he worries about content ownership.  "With the cloud, you don't own anything," he says. "You already signed it away" through the legalistic terms of service with a cloud provider that computer users must agree to."

iOS and Android Tablets Capturing Different Consumer Segments

Clear customer segments emerged from a comScore analysis of tablet purchasing, and the findings might strike you as entirely believable. 

Apple iPad owners skewed male (52.9 percent), slightly younger (44.5 percent under the age of 35) and wealthier (46.3 percent residing in households with income of $100k or greater) compared to an average tablet user during the three-month average period ending June 2012. That over-indexing for younger and richer users has been a notable characteristic of iPad adopters since the product first launched. 

In comparison, Kindle Fire owners saw their audience skew female with 56.6 percent of its audience base represented by females. 

Both Android and Kindle Fire users saw household income below that of iPad owners, aligning more closely with household income reported by smart phone owners. 

Demographic Profile: Tablet* and Smartphone Audience 3 month avg. ending June 2012  Total U.S. Tablet Owners and Smartphone Subscribers, Age 13+ Source: comScore TabLens and comScore MobiLens
	Total Smartphone	Total Tablet	iPad	Android** Tablet	Kindle Fire
Gender
Male	51.9%	50.0%	52.9%	50.9%	43.4%
Female	48.1%	50.0%	47.1%	49.1%	56.6%
Age
13-17	6.0%	5.5%	4.7%	6.2%	5.5%
18-24	17.5%	13.0%	14.0%	12.9%	12.2%
25-34	24.6%	24.2%	25.8%	22.5%	24.7%
35-44	21.0%	20.6%	21.4%	20.1%	20.5%
45-54	16.7%	18.1%	16.8%	19.7%	16.9%
55-64	9.0%	11.0%	9.7%	10.8%	12.5%
65+	5.3%	7.6%	7.5%	7.8%	7.6%
Household Income
<$25k	12.0%	7.8%	5.5%	11.7%	7.0%
$25k to <$50k	19.6%	18.1%	14.4%	20.4%	20.9%
$50k to <$75k	19.3%	19.1%	17.2%	20.0%	21.3%
$75k to <$100k	15.6%	16.7%	16.6%	15.3%	17.5%
$100k+	33.5%	38.4%	46.3%	32.5%	33.3%