Wal-Mart Tests Mobile Checkout

Employees at Wal-Mart Stores are testing a new checkout system that allows shoppers to use their mobile phones to scan items as they walk through stores and pay at self-service kiosks, skipping the cashiers' lines. Keep in mind that it is a "scanning" application, not a "mobile payment" program. 

Wal-Mart is not proposing, at the moment, to support payment using the mobile, but only to allow the mobiles to scan items before check out, saving time at the registers since all the items already have been scanned. 

"Scan and Go" could have many of the same advantages as a mobile payment system, though. 

Wal-Mart's scanning program could allow Wal-Mart to collect data on what customers buy and how long they spend in stores, and to send shoppers coupons for competitive products in real-time as they scan items.

The program illustrates one more way mobile commerce can add value for consumers and retailers, without a formal "mobile payments" capability being added. 

T Mobile Launches "Clever Connect" Mobile VoIP in United Kingdom

Clever Connect is a new T-Mobile mobile VoIP calling service available in the United Kingdom. It is similar to “Bobsled” in the United Kingdom and Telefonica’s “TuMe.”

T-Mobile’s  Bobsled service initially allowed smart phone owners to call their Facebook friends from their mobile devices, and had expanded to provide free calls to any mobile or landline number in the United States, Canada or Puerto Rico from anywhere in the world, by using a desktop browser.

Working with Danish mobile communications company Vopium, T-Mobile in the UK created Clever Connect, available now for iOS and Android devices on the U.K. Everything Everywhere (T-Mobile parent company).

At the moment Clever Connect is only available by invitation.

Clever Connect appears to be aimed at growing T-Mobile’s out of region customer revenue, and potentially as a tool for customer acquisition, more than a way to compete with over the top mobile VoIP providers in its current areas of operation.

Mobile Web Usage Passes Desktop Access in India

For the first time, Web usage in India from mobile devices has exceeded Web access from desktop devices.

In August 2012,  mobile accounted for 51.63 percent of Web usage in India, with desktop devices making up the remaining 48.37 percent, according to StatCounter.  

Despite a population in excess of 1.2 billion, India’s Internet penetration rate remains below 10 percent. That makes mobile — both smartphones and feature phones — the most accessible Internet platform for hundreds of millions in the country.






Mobile Web access also is dominated by mobile devices in China as well.

For Smart Phones, Bigger Screens are Significant

Phones with bigger screens are becoming noticeably more popular, a study by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech sugests. About 29 percent of the Android devices sold in the past 12 weeks have a screen size of over 4.5 inches, Kantar Worldpanel says.

Also, smart phones with bigger screens seem to correlate with different end user behavior.
For example, only 19 percent of consumers with a screen smaller than three inches download or watch videos, compared to 65 percent  when the screen is five inches or more in size.

ComTech data shows that the more engaged consumers are with their device, the more likely they are to stay loyal to an operating system or brand when they upgrade, the Kantar Worldpanel data suggests.

The latest smart phone sales data also shows that Android continues to gain share across Europe, now holding over two thirds of the market. In the United States and United Kingdom, the Apple iPhone is more popular.

Android has increased  its market share in Europe by 20.2 percent in the past year.

It’s hard to say whether bigger screens, service provider marketing priorities and pricing or end user preferences account for the differences in consumer choices about devices.

In Post-PC Era, Content Matters

The argument that device marketplace success hinges on software, or that software is an increasingly key part of any "hardware" experience, is not a novel argument. The refrain has been growing, for obvious reasons, for decades.

In the music and video business, for example, the business "is" software (content). For that reason, Sony decades ago concluded that content was an essential component of its video appliance strategy, however poorly one might argue that strategy has been executed. 

Content clearly is what made the Apple iPod so dominant, and how Amazon hopes to achieve success with the Kindle Fire. The app store now is viewed as a crucial element for sales of smart phones and tablets overall, as well. 

In the PC business, software likewise has made a difference. At a retail level, spreadsheets were the reason PCs were adopted first by financial personnel. Microsoft productivity suites likewise have been considered a necessary application for consumer PCs. 

Looking only at equity performance, one might well conclude that software and content now are key features of "winners" in the post-PC era of computing appliances, as well. 

"Untethered" Hasn't Displaced "Mobile," But is Growing

The living room and the bedroom are the most popular places Europeans use their tablets, CCS Insights reports. 

At least so far, tablet users are using tablets in place of laptops and netbooks around the home.

Almost 80 percent of  4,500 respondents to a survey said they're using their tablets in the living room. In the UK and France, nearly seven in ten use it in the bedroom, while almost four in 10 Europeans log-on in the kitchen.

If you add in the use of mobile phones on at-home or at-work Wi-Fi networks, it is obvious that "untethered" use of devices, applications and networks is becoming a bigger percentage of total usage.  

How Does Google Fiber Compare, as an "Overbuilder?"

It is difficult to say what level of customer success Google will have to achieve, overall, in Kansas City, Kan. and Kansas City, Mo. to make Google Fiber a sustainable proposition. The difficulty lies partly in the service suite, partly in the pricing and partly in end user behavior and competitor response.

Many overbuilders offer a triple-play package of voice, Internet access and video entertainment. Google Fiber sells only broadband access and video entertainment. So where some overbuilders have three potential revenue items, Google Fiber will rely on just two.

Also, Google Fiber is offering a "free" access service in addition to the for-fee 1 Gbps service, and it remains unclear how the balance of "subscribers" will work out. Other overbuilders count only paying subscribers, but Google will have some as yet undetermined number of non-paying customers as well.

Also, Google Fiber will likely earn less gross revenue from its video services than most overbuilders, simply because it has elected to offer a more-affordable package that costs less than the typical video entertainment service. 

Other overbuilders arguably might expect to achieve 10 percent to 15 percent video penetration, and perhaps 10 percent to 15 percent broadband access penetration, plus some additional share of voice service customers. The new math consists in getting a high enough sale of service "units" to boost revenue into the $100 a month range, on average. 

Granted, some overbuilders have done better than that. But it is pretty tough these days, with established telco, cable and satellite competitors, to do much better. 

Google clearly will be able to hit such minimum thresholds if a customer buys the 1 Gbps access service plus video. But not all customers will do so, and Google also has the operating cost of providing free broadband to some percentage of homes. 

For its part, Google likewise is trying a different tack to its actual construction activities, essentially trying to use a pre-registration program to estimate where initial take rates will be the highest. 

Basically, Google has residents "voting" for Google Fiber by pre-registering and making a payment of $10. 

Each of of the potential "fiberhoods" then has a minimum threshold of pre-registrations that qualify the fiberhood for construction. Until the threshold is reached, construction is not contemplated. 

Google has had to create different thresholds for different fiberhoods, and now has tweaked the algorithm just a bit to account for some inaccuracies in the databases Google built from a variety of sources about the actual number of potential residences in a fiberhood. 

So Google now adjusts the "potential homes passed" part of the algorithm to deduct vacant lots, abandoned homes and also adjust for large apartment buildings, as distinct from single-family homes.

The changes slightly affect 73 fiberhoods, boosting the percentage of sign-ups in some of the fiberhoods and therefore slightly increasing the likelihood that some fiberhoods will qualify for actual construction. 

Some 40 out of 74 fiberhoods now qualify. In Kansas City, Missouri while  75 out of 128 fiberhoods have now reached their goals as well. 

Depending on neighborhood, it appears that between 20 percent and 35 percent of homes passed is the goal Google is pursuing. If all those pre-registrants actually wind up buying a paid  service, then Google would quickly achieve an impressive penetration level for an overbuilder.