Subscriber Growth Remains Strong in the UK Mobile Market

DUBLIN, Ireland--Research and Markets has announced the addition of United Kingdom -Mobile Market - Overview & Statistics to their offering.
The UK has one of the largest mobile markets in Europe, served by five major providers which have all launched 3G services, as well as by a growing number of low-cost MVNOs. The market in 2007 was characterised by new developments in advanced data services such as mobile TV, the bundling of mobile as a quad-play service, and regulatory controls on charges and fees. Mobile penetration reached 117% by mid-2007, yet subscriber growth remains strong as consumers adopt additional SIMs and business-oriented devices such as the BlackBerry. Fierce competition has forced operators to concentrate on packaging service bundles and line service promotions, and experiment with providing mobile searching and advertising facilities.

Mobile Ticketing Goes Mainstream

HAMPSHIRE, UNITED KINDOM--(Marketwire - March 5, 2008) - New research has estimated that over 2.6 billion mobile tickets will be delivered to just over 208 million mobile phone users by 2011. This is one of the key statistics from a landmark study by Juniper Research. The report found clear evidence that the sector is gearing up for major launches over the next few years. Early trials, mainly led by mobile network operators, are now migrating into commercial services that are controlled by the ticketing issuers themselves.

Benefits for the ticketing issuers include reduced cost, better security to help the fight against fraud and improved environmental footprint by reducing paper. Early use of mobile barcode technology will be gradually complimented by the emergence of NFC (Near Field Communications), in particular for the transportation ticketing sector where there are already commercial deployments in the Far East and important trials in Western Europe and North America.

Most encouraging for the sector is the wide adoption by some of the major organisations that control the issuance of tickets, such as Ticketmaster, British Airways and Tickets.com. This is coupled with the involvement of the key operators and technology providers such as O2, NTT, DoCoMo, Vodafone, Nokia and Samsung.

Juniper Research illustrates the current and near-future status of mobile ticketing with analysis and interviews from representatives of some of the leading organisations in the growing mobile ticket industry.

Key findings from the report include:


-- Savings for the airline industry of $500 million each year by
migrating to mobile boarding passes
-- A total of almost $87 billion worth of mobile ticketing transactions
by 2011
-- NFC will start to create traction from 2009 onwards.

Overview of Russia’s Mobile Market

Research and Markets has announced the addition of Russia - Mobile, Mobile Content & Applications Overview & Statistics to their offering.

Russia’s has the largest mobile market in Europe. The rapidly growing sector is dominated by three major service providers (MTS, VimpelCom and MegaFon) which have expanded nationally through acquisitions of smaller regional service providers. Mobile Virtual Network Operators have also launched services. Competition in the key markets of Moscow and St Petersburg is fierce, due to higher ARPU and MOU levels. Mobile SIM card penetration has surpassed 100% although actual mobile user penetration is lower. Both new subscriber growth and declining ARPU levels have stabilised although MOU levels are on the rise, partly attributed to improved marketing. Future mobile growth will continue to be driven by voice in the short to medium term until availability and penetration of recently launched UMTS/3G services is high enough to sufficiently offer affordable and desirable mobile data and content services on a sufficient scale. This report provides a concise overview of Russia’s mobile market, covering regulatory developments, the major mobile operators, technologies used and mobile data, content and applications provided in addition to offering a variety of financial and operational statistics.

Western Europe’s Average Mobile Penetration Reached 108%

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Research and Markets has announced the addition of 2007 Western European Mobile Communications & Mobile Data to their offering.
Western Europe’s mobile market has shown consistent growth for several years. Average mobile penetration reached 108% by mid-2007 while sustaining subscriber growth of 8.5%. However, a slowdown in revenue growth was largely due to intensifying competition and regulatory action which led to falling prices for voice minutes, roaming and interconnection charges. Growth in coming years will primarily depend on subscribers adopting mobile data services.
Europe has been an important laboratory for 3G networks and services and for emerging technologies such as EDGE and HSCSD. Financial considerations from 2001 to 2004 hampered developments in 3G roll-outs, while 2.5G offerings such as GPRS failed to take off. An important catalyst for mobile growth since 2005 has been the rapid development of product features and new product designs. About 60% of mobile phones sold in mid-2007 had additional functionality such as cameras, while 95% of 3G phones had MP3 or similar technology on board. Built-in GPS has also become a standard feature in many phones.
During 2007, the major pan-European operators - Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile, Orange - continued with business models that focussed on broadening their footprint across both Eastern and Western European countries, as well as branching out into other growth areas such as broadband. Vodafone in particular has endeavoured to align itself as a quad-play operator by buying the networks of broadband providers in markets such as Italy and Spain where it already has a significant mobile presence. T-Mobile has also made an impact, particularly through acquisitions and licensing agreements with MVNOs. Other than these companies, the mobile subsidiaries of incumbent telcos continue to be the most important mobile operators in their respective countries across Europe.
GSM networks continue to dominate the market, with more than 80 network operators in the EU, including three to four operational in most European countries. There were also some 214 MVNOs operating in Europe in 2006, with more beginning operations each month.
Mobile penetration in Europe is so ingrained among consumers that almost 20% of users have opted to have a mobile phone only, ditching their fixed line. This figure would certainly increase substantially if mobile calls were charged at landline rates.

Mobile data
SMS still accounts for the bulk of data revenue, while less than 20% of subscribers use MMS/picture messaging and fewer still make use of mobile Internet and mobile TV despite numerous launches and promotions.
During 2007, most European mobile operators deployed or expanded EDGE and HSDPA networks in a bid to encourage consumer use of mobile broadband services and increase data ARPU. The number of content providers and the range of services on offer has expanded, making consumer involvement in mobile data a more likely proposition during the next few years. The EU suggested imposing regulatory limits on data roaming tariffs during 2008, which will dent operator revenue. This may not be all bad. Gaming, video and music portals are being progressively transferred to the mobile arena, and subscribers have become more aware of the capabilities of 3G services, but are also wary of the present high usage costs. By mid-2007, the 3G subscriber base on which mobile data growth depends approached 50 million, though providers have struggled to encourage subscribers to use services which are widely perceived as expensive and of uncertain value.
A range of potential mobile data services could be made available, including information on public transport systems, ringtones, games, directory enquiries, weather forecasts, voting services, share prices, horoscopes and logotypes. Typically, these are only provided to the operator’s own customers.
A key constraint limiting customer demand for mobile content and services has been the absence of content with sufficient drawing power to attract users onto a new platform. Ongoing work to develop gaming and handset customisation, as well as new services such as mobile video and TV services, has created a mass of content for operators such as Vodafone, Telefónica Moviles and O2. The Vodafone live! portal has become relatively popular, partly through having the scale and reach to leverage a compelling quantity of content into the service. Hutchison’s 3 has worked hard to develop similar content with media partners on a country-by-country basis.

Mobile TV: Business Models and Opportunties

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report related to the industry is available in its catalogue.

Mobile TV: Business Models and Opportunties

Television is already a mass media and is also currently made available through the Internet Protocol (IP). Marrying the two most popular services in the world may sound like a great idea but there are still several issues which must be carefully addressed before mobile TV becomes a safe investment.

Who is going to pay for the network deployment What will be the underlying business model Are appropriate regulation policies necessary How new regulation may affect the market What are the opportunities for mobile operators, broadcasters and content owners There are currently no straight answers to those questions but several options exist. They must be deeply investigated in order to make appropriate decisions for mobile TV to become successful.

The purpose of this report is to offer an understanding of the fundamental aspects of the mobile TV market past present and future with regards to the technology choice and local context. This report also analyses the mobile TV market from the views of different players in the value chain.

Key findings:

The mobile TV market will be worth over €4.4bn in 2011 in Asia, North America and Western Europe combined

Subscription business models will dominate, generating more than 90 per cent of revenues in 2011

The most impressive growth will be experienced in North America where the broadcast mobile TV market is set to grow by 350 per cent between 2008 and 2010.

A key obstacle to overcome is the lack of spectrum and appropriate regulation

Although free to air services drive customer growth in Asia, the business model lacks proven monetisation methods, therefore undermining its deployment in other markets.

Mobile TV will generate more revenues than mobile music and mobile games combined

In Europe, mobile TV will represent 27 per cent of total pay TV subscriptions.In the report:

Forecasts of mobile TV subscriptions, viewings and consumer revenues to 2011

Background of technology standards and spectrum.

Overview of the current state of the market.

Analysis of the regulation impact on mobile broadcast TV deployments.

Review and history of business models for unicast and broadcast mobile TV services.

Description and comparison of value chain structures.

Market sizes by technology and business models.

Analysis of the impact of mobile TV on the TV and mobile content industries.

Comparison of mobile TV ARPU with other pay TV platforms.

Analysis of the major key players in the industry including mobile operators, broadcasters, technology enablers and service providers.

Data profile for each of the leading markets in Asia, North America and Europe

Mobile TV: Business Models and Opportunties