Mobile Penetration No Less than 72%, Anywhere

Lots of stats in this presentation, including social, mobile and Internet access adoption rates across the globe. What might shock you is the high adoption of mobile service, everywhere. The lowest adoption rate is 72 percent, anywhere. 

Social, Digital & Mobile Around The World (January 2014) from We Are Social Singapore

Sprint Redefines "Family" Plan with New "Framily" Plans

Sprint’s new “Framily Plan” takes the notion of a shared family plan one step further and allows accounts to include as many as 10 devices in a shared plan, including any users the account holder wishes to specify.

The plan appears aimed at the 60 percent of U.S. households made up of fewer than three people. The Sprint Framily plan allows creation of “family plans” with virtually any self-defined group of users who agree to be on a single account, though bills can be issued separately to any member of a group.

Sprint's Framily Plan is available to new and existing customers.

For one line of service, new Sprint customers pay $55 per month per line for unlimited talk, text and 1GB of data. For each additional new Sprint customer that joins the Framily group, the cost per person goes down $5 a month up to a maximum monthly discount of $30 per line.

Build a group of at least seven people and everyone gets unlimited talk, text and 1GB of data for $25 per month per line (pricing excludes taxes and surcharges).

For $20 per month per line, Framily members can buy up to unlimited data plus get a new phone every year.

Each account can be billed separately.

To participate, customers purchase an eligible wireless phone at full retail price or through the Sprint “Easy Pay” program and pay in 24 monthly payments. Customers also can activate an existing Sprint phone.

New customers will be given a unique Framily ID, at which point they can invite friends and family outside of Sprint to join their group. Or, new customers can easily join an existing Sprint Framily group within 14 days of account activation.

Existing Sprint accounts, though,  cannot be combined into one Framily plan unless both accounts are owned by the same person.

The price of the Framily Plan for customers currently on a plan with a discounted phone is an additional $15 per month per line for service until the customer’s line is upgrade eligible. For a limited time, Sprint will waive the $15 per month to move to the Sprint Framily Plan for customers who purchased a discounted phone before Jan. 10, 2014, and are not upgrade eligible.

A single-line subscriber who is part of a seven-line Framily Group will pay $25 per month for unlimited talk, text and 1GB of data, a significant monthly savings versus what they would pay for a new line of service at competitors.

Sprint argues a seven-member Framily, at $25 per user, beats a T-Mobile Simple Choice (500MB of data) at $50 a month; an AT&T Mobile Share Value plan with 1 GB of data at $70 a month or a Verizon Share Everything account with 1GB of data at $90.

Those comparisons, one might argue, are not truly “apples to apples,” as Sprint compares per-user costs for a seven-member plan with single user plans.

A single-line subscriber at Sprint with no group members, a better comparison,  would have a single user paying $55 per month.

The Framily plan offers users more flexibility and possibly some recurring cost savings, compared to T-Mobile US, AT&T Mobility or Verizon Wireless plans, on a single-user basis. lt’s helpful, though not likely “disruptive.”

Global Device Shipments Up 7.6% in 2014

Global shipments of devices including PCs, tablets and mobile phones are projected to reach 2.5 billion units in 2014, a 7.6 percent increase from 2013, according to Gartner. 

Among operating systems, Android is on pace to surpass one billion users across all devices in 2014. 

By 2017, over 75 percent of Android's volumes will come from emerging markets, according to Gartner.

Worldwide Device Shipments by Segment (Thousands of Units)

Device Type	2012	2013	2014	2015
PC (Desk-Based and Notebook)	341,273	299,342	277,939	268,491
Tablet (Ultramobile)	119,529	179,531	263,450	324,565
Mobile Phone	1,746,177	1,804,334	1,893,425	1,964,788
Other Ultramobiles (Hybrid and Clamshell)	9,344	17,195	39,636	63,835
Total	2,216,322	2,300,402	2,474,451	2,621,678

Source: Gartner (December 2013)

Sony to Launch Streaming TV Service in U.S. in 2014

Viacom had in 2013 predicted at least one firm would launch a new streaming TV service in 2014, featuring the same kind of channels that now are only available to cable and satellite TV subscribers, and now Sony has done so.

Sony says it will start an Internet-based TV service in the United States in 2014, offering a mix of live TV programming and video on demand.

Andrew House, group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, says the service will have personalized channels reflecting the viewer's tastes.

Based on the number of homes with Internet-connected Sony devices, he says the service would be among the top five providers of TV programming in the country.

Verizon and AT&T Have Captured Most of the U.S. Mobile Industry's Growth Since 2008

A new report on the U.S. mobile industry provides confirmation of the pervasiveness of the mobile business. U.S. mobile penetration at the end of 2012 was 102 percent and almost 40 percent of U.S. households are mobile only, IGI Group says. 

The report also shows how U.S. market structure has changed since about 2008. Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility still are number one and number two in terms of subscribers, and have captured most of the market's growth.

Europe has Lowest LTE Retail Prices: Good for Consumers, Not Service Providers

Average Long Term Evolution 4G mobile service  pricing in the European Union  is $34.89 per month (average monthly data allowance of almost 20GB) and is the lowest of the six regions surveyed by Tariff Consultancy.

For consumers, that is the good news. For service providers, that is the bad news. In fact, LTE service providers in France offer LTE services without any pricing premium over 3G data plans.

And though observers and practitioners alike might have hoped that LTE could be uniformly introduced as a “premium” offer, that has not universally been the case.

In the United Kingdom, LTE prices are certain to come under pressure once 3 launches its LTE network, as 3 has said it will not charge a premium for LTE data access.

The pricing pressure should not be a surprise, as many surveys had suggested 4G service pricing would be an issue.

In most European markets, however, new adopters of smartphone service expected to pay less, about 28 percent to 31 percent less--than the amount existing subscribers said they were willing to pay.

And that rate typically was less than the current average market price for 3G service, researchers at McKinsey had found.

Should that trend spread, mobile service providers will find they have to work harder to reduce costs, since LTE might impose capital spending burdens with little direct revenue upside.

AT&T Introduces "Toll Free" Data Service for Partners

AT&T has launched a “Sponsored Data” service that content or application partners can use in a way similar to “toll free” phone numbers,

With the new Sponsored Data service, data charges for participating apps and services will be billed directly to the sponsoring company, much as Kindle content downloads have been paid for by Amazon, directly to AT&T.

The Sponsored Data program extends that concept, allowing business partners to encourage usage, as mobile customer data plans are not charged for usage.

The Sponsored Data apps and services will be delivered at the same speed and performance as any other content, on a best effort basis, with no packet prioritization.

AT&T believes the program will be attractive for partners in industry verticals including healthcare, retail, media and entertainment and financial services, to encourage sampling of new apps that otherwise might strain data plan allowances, especially video apps such as movie trailers and games.

If users are able to browse mobile shopping sites without incurring data plan charges, that likewise should encourage usage of the sites offering the feature.

For business customers, the feature might be a way to support essential work-related apps without necessarily subsidizing all other consumption.