Highlights from the Mobile World Congress - Mobile Content & Apps
Posted by Mark Newman
February 21st, 2008
Mobile content generally took a backseat to mobile Internet at this year’s Mobile World Congress. The term mobile entertainment seems to have fallen out of fashion (even though operators continue to push these services under their mobile Internet umbrella) while progress on mobile TV seems to have stalled as a result of uncertainty over technologies and business models.
Over the last 12 months mobile advertising has been touted as a universal panacea for the mobile value-added services sector. However, this was not in evidence in Barcelona and, if anything, the (short term) potential of mobile advertising was downplayed at the event. SMS/messaging-based advertising was identified as a sector with strong potential for mobile advertising but issues relating to the placement of adverts and underlying network infrastructures remain unresolved.
Location and navigation were strong themes again this year. Navigation capabilities were pushed on a number of devices but, in the longer term, greater potential is seen in overlaying subscriber data on top of location information. However, this potential can only be unlocked if operators work together to overcome interoperability issues.
Nokia and Microsoft had, arguably, the biggest presence of any mobile content and applications providers in Barcelona. There were less smaller/niche mobile entertainment providers than in recent years, reinforcing the view that the sector is in the process of becoming dominated by major Internet, entertainment and handset brands.
Operators are caught in a quandary currently with no easy answers with regards to what they need to do to give their customers a mobile Internet experience. On one hand they realize that the experience that they offer their customers has to be as streamlined and as close to what consumers expect from their online experience. But on the other hand, they realize that it is extremely difficult to monetize such an experience beyond selling basic access. It is likely that exclusive arrangements with “best of breed” sites will become the norm with operators charging (additional) monthly fees to access these services.
In the messaging space, ‘sweating the assets’ was a mantra for many operators as they seek to make the most of the investments they have already made. This means creative ways to reduce churn or increase traffic/minutes. Voice SMS, voice to text and utilizing MMS as a media channel rather than just plain picture messaging were all important themes in Barcelona. Mobile operators generally are now viewing messaging as a business in its own right, rather than an add on. Many messaging vendors reported that their meetings this year were with ‘C’ level executives at operators rather than in previous years when they tended to meet with engineers.
Mobile banking and payments have been generating considerable interest over the last year or so, partly as a result of the GSM Association’s own initiatives in this space. The focus is very much on emerging markets and developed economies with large communities of migrant workers. Vodafone is one operator that is keen to learn from mobile banking deployments in parts of its footprint, such as Kenya and Afghanistan, and apply them group wide. France Telecom is involved in several projects in Africa, in partnership with different banks.
