By
Chris Fox on July 31st, 2008
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[VIA ME DAILY]
Japanese operator says it saw no adverse effects when rival Softbank launched the device in early-July.
NTT DoCoMo posted its first operating profit for three years this morning and wasted no time in reaffirming it was right not to strike a deal to offer Apple’s iPhone.
Back in June there were suggestions that DoCoMo - Japan’s largest operator - was snubbed during discussions with Apple, which eventually announced a deal with rival operator Softbank.
But NTT DoCoMo president Ryuji Yamada told the company’s earnings news conference: “Judging from the recent sales trend of major carriers, we did not see a massive outflow of subscribers to our competitors, which seems to suggest that demand for iPhones is largely for secondary use.”
DoCoMo has posted fiscal 1Q revenue down 1.1 per cent at 1.17 trillion yen, with operating profit coming in 45 per cent up at 296.5 billion yen. Net profits rose 41 per cent to reach 173.5 billion yen.
[VIA ME DAILY]
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By
Chris Fox on July 29th, 2008
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[VIA ME DAILY]
Australian mobile social networking firm snaps up competitor from Norway’s Funcom. Swiss-Norwegian games developer Funcom has sold its social networking subsidiary Plutolife AS to Jumbuck for $3.7 million.
Oslo-based Plutolife says it has over a million users in 16 countries. Last October the company completed a convertible bond issue to help fund a move into the US market.
Its services include Mobilove dating, Mobiflirt ’speed flirting’ and Mobimodels blogging and picture voting, as well as various white label solutions. Jumbuck says its own services have 15 million users globally.
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By
Chris Fox on July 24th, 2008
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[VIA ME DAILY]
Content revenues in the Indian region hit $8.3 billion by 2013, says Juniper. The researcher says revs are will hit $3 billion in 2008 and predicts the arrival of 3G in 2009 will boost an already buoyant market for ringtones, games and music. Other findings were:
- The Indian mobile user base is expected to rise from 431 million in 2008 to nearly 740 million in 2013
- Blended ARPU levels are expected to decline steadily across the region, although the sharp fall in voice ARPU will be partially offset by the steady increase from data service
- India will provide the largest share of cumulative regional revenues over the forecast period, followed by Pakistan
The detailed report provides in-depth coverage and forecasts for the five Indian Sub Continent markets (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka). It also includes regional overviews for key revenue drivers including mobile advertising, mobile entertainment services, mobile financial services and mobile ticketing.
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By
Chris Fox on July 23rd, 2008
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[VIA: MocoNews]
Well, the good news for record companies is that they will be able to make some money from mobile music; unfortunately, says eMarketer, they won’t see as much as they’ve been hoping for. eMarketer forecasts worldwide mobile music retail revenues will grow from $2.4 billion in 2007 to over $13 billion by 2012—but full-track download sales will not even comprise half of that in five years. By that time, mobile fulltrack sales will rise from last year’s $631 million to $5.3 billion. Global revenue from ringtones and similar snippets will climb to $8 billion from $1.7 billion in 2007.
Ad-supported mobile music will not only provide a nice boost, it will also see the biggest leap in growth: eMarketer expects the category to sprout from a paltry $42 million in 2007 to a $116 million this year. By 2013, the researcher anticipates mobile marketers to contribute $1.5 billion the the music industry’s worldwide business. Looking specifically at the U.S. market, back in May, the Mobile Entertainment Forum projected the U.S. market for ad-funded mobile entertainment will grow to $336.35 million by 2013. The main attraction will be the promise of greater targeting to specific demos. But while helpful, the alternate revenue streams are not likely to offset the losses the business will continue to bear from piracy and the wider transition to digital
[VIA: MocoNews]
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By
Chris Fox on July 21st, 2008
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[VIA: Mobgizmo]
The Apple iPhone 3G fails at being a true multimedia device. Almost all of the great mobile content that is offered by Optus, Vodafone, Telstra and other content providers like MobileActive and Jamster is not available on the new iPhone 3G. The iPhone 3G is incompatible with a lot of the content services and does not support flash. The cost of using the iPhone to browse is a lot higher in Australian then it is in other countries. For example, in the US, iPhone customers are treated to unlimited web browsing!
As a result, once again us Aussies are hit with massive bills as soon as we try and access online video or stream musc. With petrol prices soaring, getting a hefty mobile bill could really set the average Australian back.
Mark McDonnel, telecom analyst at BBY, said Apple was purposely limiting the device’s ability to access other content sources in order to force Australians to buy their content from its own iTunes and Apps stores. They are trying to create a monopoly on the market, which should not be encouraged. Consumers need to rally together and boycott the iPhone to ensure this does not happen.
“Of course, Apple has its own platform and it’s a question of whether people want to adapt to fit their content onto the Apple platform, so I don’t see the technical barriers as insuperable but they do impose costs and delays,” he said.
For example, if you are on Telstra and have an Apple iPhone 3G then you can forget about Foxtel Mobile or Bigpond TV because they are most certainly not supported. If you are with Optus then you can no longer access their fantastic range of ringtones, wallpapers, music downloads or mobile TV channels, which include MTV, Ministry of Sound, Nickelodeon, ABC, CNN and SBS.
Vodafone succeeds at being the absolute worse choice if you want to indulge in media. The entire Vodafone Live portal doesn’t work and neither Apple or Vodafone seem to care, so why should the consumer?
“The iPhone 3G’s [web] browser, Safari, is an HTML browser - Vodafone Live operates on a PML browser, which isn’t compatible with the HTML browser,” Vodafone spokesman Greg Spears said.
[VIA: Mobgizmo]
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By
Chris Fox on July 18th, 2008
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[VIA: ME DAILY]
Premium telephony watchdog PhonePayPlus introduces new rules to curb customer complaints. PhonePlayPlus this morning confirmed that any company not allowing customers to stop a mobile content subscription quickly and easily will be barred from operation with immediate effect.
It’s like 2004 all over again in the UK off-deck mobile content industry (worth £460m in 2007/08) as rising complaints against ‘rip off’ ringtone providers have forced the premium telephony regulator to take action.
PhonePayPlus says it received more than 8,000 mobile-related complaints in 2007/8, a 108 per cent increase on the previous year. In the first three months of 2008 alone, PhonepayPlus received more than 4,500 complaints.
The regular maintains there is also anecdotal evidence of consumers, including young people, being charged several thousand pounds as a result of bad practice by content and service providers. Additional measures, which PhonePayPlus says will come into affect by winter, will ensure consumers: “receive fewer and more targeted promotional text messages; are able to make informed purchase decisions; and find it as easy to leave a subscription service as it was to join”.
In 2007 PhonepayPlus adjudged 33 mobile services to be in breach and imposed fines of more than £360,000. In the first six months of 2008, we have already adjudicated on 25 mobile phone-paid services with total fines in excess of £390,000.
[VIA: ME DAILY]
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By
Chris Fox on July 14th, 2008
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[VIA: Cellular News]
A study by the European Commission is reported to have found that the vast majority of websites selling mobile content aimed at children and teenagers are misleading them with unclear charges and confusing information. The Commission is expected to announce the results of the survey later this week, along with plans to clamp down on the practices. In the UK, the proportion of problematic websites was more than 90%, with 39 of the 43 websites warranting further investigation. “Some children as young as five have a phone and young people often see ringtones as a fashion statement,” Meglena Kuneva, commissioner for consumer protection told the Sunday Times newspaper “Children are particularly vulnerable consumers and our initial investigation into the mobile services market shows a high number of rogue traders ready to cash in on this.” The main complaints surround the use of subscription services and the lure of services which are free to sign up to, but then have charges afterwards.
The UK premium content regulator, PhonepayPlus has recently reported a doubling in complaints in the first quarter of this year, which is striking as the huge “crazy frog” mania which was fed in part by a subscription service did not generate as many complaints. If the EU were to block subscription services, it could have a significant impact on 3rd party suppliers in what is a EUR550 million annual market. A similar move to block subscription services in China decimated the market at the time, although it has since recovered.
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By
Chris Fox on July 10th, 2008
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[VIA: ME DAILY]
Revenue to quadruple by 2012, according to research from MultiMedia Intelligence. Revenue generated globally from mobile TV and video services will reach $3.5 billion in 2008 and grow to hit $15 billion by 2012, says MMI.
The forecast, which includes direct pay and advertising, predicts that mobile television as a category (DVB-H, media FLO, 3G streaming, etc) will outgrow video content (clip downloads, etc).
Currently video is the stronger of the two categories. However, MMI says that with more mobile TV optimised handsets being deployed and an improving infrastructure, television will become the dominant category by 2012.
The report also projects that the market for mobile advertising will top $1 billion dollars within four years, with Asia accounting for two thirds of all mobile TV subscribers due to a large wireless subscriber base and good free-to-air content.
Frank Dickson, chief research officer at MMI, said: “The mobile handset is inherently a superior communications platform. It allows for TV advertising outside the home as well as enabling new forms of advertising, including ‘call to action’ advertising. Call to action leverages the handsets built in return channel to deliver advertising beyond the capabilities of the living room TV experience”.
[VIA: ME DAILY]
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By
Chris Fox on July 8th, 2008
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[VIA: MOCONEWS]
A flood of customers visiting the O2 UK website this morning to pre-order the 3G iPhone caused the sales part of the website to crash under the traffic load. Pre-orders from registered customers were permitted from 8am this morning - following a SMS alert being sent to prospective customers, but the site was reported to be down within an hour.
“Due to extremely high levels of demand, the O2 online shop is temporarily unavailable. We are working to restore the service as quickly as possible. Customers who are unable to place an order online can still go into store from 8.02am on 11 July, although we urge people to get down there early as demand is expected to be very high,” said O2 in a statement.
Customers were also told to phone the call centre if they got to an error page, but the call centre has been reported to be unable to take phone transactions until the official launch date, this coming Friday. The company has split its stock of iPhones roughly in half, with one batch reserved for online sales and the other for its own retail outlets. The company says that it has had some 200,000 people register as being interested in the 3G iPhone. Separately, O2 is to make the iPhone available through selected independent retailers who are part of the operators “B2B Centre of Excellence” program in the near future.
[VIA: MOCONEWS]
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By
Chris Fox on July 7th, 2008
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[VIA: ME DAILY]
Flirtomatic is to launch in Germany, marking its first expansion outside of the UK. The company has teamed up with Germany’s SevenOne for the project. SevenOne Intermedia is the multimedia unit of broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 Group, which owns Germany’s largest family of commercial TV channels. SevenOne will promote Flirtomatic via its TV, web and mobile platforms.
A German language version has been developed specifically for the market and Flirtomatic will be supporting local users with German customer care.
Flirtomatic runs a mobile and online service that invites members to ‘meet’ and flirt. It’s free, but users can buy flirt points that they redeem for gifts that they can send to their friends. The firm claims over 850,000 members of which 400,000 use the mobile channel.
Flirtomatic has hinted that further European launches are in the pipeline. Mark Curtis, CEO of Flirtomatic, said: “We’re thrilled to be launching in Germany. It has taken us three months from decision to rollout and we know that we can reduce this further, as we launch throughout Europe. It’s exciting to be taking our first steps into Europe and overcoming the challenges of going global with a mobile internet service.
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