Came across an interesting report from Portio Research which says, mobile phone users sent more than 5 trillion text messages last year, creating a $150 billion market.

Mobile markets across regions are intensely competitive and some of them have reached saturation in terms of penetration of addressable markets.With tumbling voice tariffs contributing to declining Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) rates, mobile operators are actively pushing for growth of the non-voice value-added services (VAS) market. Despite the economic uncertainties, the mobile services market in South Asian and Middle East countries continues to sustain a growth path, especially in countries such as India.

The key trends in this market have been noted. Presently, mobile voice revenues constitute the largest chunk of mobile operator’s revenues, relegating mobile data revenues to a miniscule percentage. However, the mobile operators have realized that in order to curb depleting ARPUs, they would need to widen their focus on increasing data revenues. In the case of Messaging, the popularity of Peer to Application (P2A) SMS, where mobile subscribers respond to an application such as voting through SMS for a TV program, is on the rise. In terms of Premium Content – Mobile Entertainment segment, it remains the most significant form of mobile VAS across the South Asia and Middle East geographies.

According to Lavanya Palani Batcha, Industry Analyst, ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan, South Asia and Middle East, “With many markets almost reaching saturation point or having surpassed saturation in terms of mobile subscriptions penetration, telecom service providers are in need to bolster the ARPUs; and mobile VAS has the potential to alleviate this issue of declining ARPUs.”

The regional trend in different countries is equally interesting. India is the fastest growing mobile market in South Asia with good potential for growth amongst the rural population. The mobile VAS market is set to grow at a strong CAGR of 16.6 percent from 2008 to 2015.

Saudi Arabian mobile market has a high mobile penetration. However, the country still witnesses steady year-on-year growth in this sector. VAS market is expected to exhibit CAGR of 10.6 percent between 2008 and 2015.

Sri Lanka has a relatively moderate mobile user penetration of 42.4 percent; hence there is good potential for growth. 3G services such as Video SMS, Dial and Watch TV have been introduced.

UAE has one of the highest mobile subscription penetrations in the South Asia and Middle East region. Both mobile operators, Etisalat and Du, increasing their focus on revenue streams from VAS and mobile TV and mobile internet, have strong potential. Mobile VAS market estimated CAGR of 11.9 percent between 2008 and 2015.

The Egyptian mobile market still possesses a sizeable under-penetrated addressable market, thereby providing avenues for growth. Relatively strong CAGR of 14.1 percent is estimated for the mobile VAS market in Egypt between 2008 and 2015.

Pakistan’s mobile market is robust with intense price wars amongst the local and foreign mobile operators. Estimated mobile VAS market CAGR is 16.8 percent between 2008 and 2015.

The mobile VAS market in South Asia and Middle East is anticipated to exhibit strong to moderate growth owing to untapped potential for VAS in these regions, 3G networks proliferation, and a saturation of revenues, and adoption of plain vanilla mobile voice services. The market is also expected to witness the emergence of stronger mobile VAS content providers/aggregators with the ability to grasp better revenue shares from the mobile operators.

For further information on this study, contact Amrita Nandi/ Nimisha Iyer, Corporate Communications, at amritan@frost.com / niyer@frost.com with your full name, company name, title, telephone number, company e-mail address, company website, city, state, and country. Upon receipt of the above information, a virtual brochure of the report will be sent to you by e-mail.

Pluggd.in has reported, based on a report by Vital Analytics, that Mobile banking in India is set to explode -  approximately 43 million urban Indians used their mobile phones to access banking services during quarter ending August, 2009, a reach of 15% among urban Indian mobile phone user.

Most Popular Banking Service on Mobile

Checking account balances is the most popular banking service used by urban Indians with almost 40 million users followed by checking last three transactions, 28 million and status of cheques with 21 million users.

Mobile banking is popular among the Rs.1 to 5 lakhs per year income group with almost 60% of mobile banking users falling in the income bracket, an indicator of adoption of this service by younger generation.

Most Popular Bank

ICICI bank maintains its position as country biggest private lender on mobile screen as well with 17.75 million users. HDFC accounts for second most subscribers with 9.1 million subscribers followed by State Bank of India with 6.13 million subscribers.

Source : Pluggd.in

Today, cell phones represent the most personal and intimate way to communicate with individuals. In this report, Nielsen highlights how brands can reach practically every mobile consumer in the U.S. – right now by adding a mobile address – a Common Short Code (CSC) – to their marketing mix.

Check out the report :

http://www.usshortcodes.com/nielsen_wp_landing2.html?myreferer=whitepaperC::fwe.html

According to a new forecast issued by digital media research firm eMarketer,online and mobile platforms will account for about 40 percent of total music spending in 2009. Citing plummeting sales of traditional physical formats as well as recent developments like Vodafone and MySpace’s Vodafone Music Reporter venture, eMarketer argues that music fans are seeking digital music communities that deliver a more unique, interactive experience by bringing together online, mobile and user-generated platforms like blogs.

According to the report, mobile–which accounted for $1.7 billion of 2007′s $29.2 billion worldwide music spending–will increase to $3.0 billion in 2008, $4.8 billion in 2009 and $6.2 billion in 2010, even as physical formats and total music spending continues to drop year-over-year. eMarketer anticipates that online and mobile will together combine for $14.8 billion in 2011, overtaking physical music media to account for 56.5 percent of all music spending.

Source: EMarketer

Mobile gaming is on track to generate worldwide revenues of $4.5 billion in 2008, a 16.1 percent increase over last year’s totals, according to a new forecast issued by information technology research and advisory firm Gartner.
Although games continue to lag behind rival mobile entertainment services including music and adult content, Gartner maintains the market is still promising, anticipating revenues will enjoy a compound annual growth rate of 10.2 percent between 2007 and 2011, with worldwide end-user spending topping $6.3 billion by 2011.

Gartner adds that operators and game providers can increase usage via game demos and advertising-funded titles–in addition, the firm suggests more tailoring their gaming services to individual consumer demographics, targeting smartphone users with more sophisticated games while reaching out to lower-income subscribers with discounted or free titles.

According to Gartner, the Asia/Pacific market (including Japan) represents the biggest target for mobile gaming, with end-user spending expected to reach $2.3 billion in 2008 and hit $3.4 billion by 2011 thanks in large part to low PC penetration throughout that area of the globe. India alone is expected to generate mobile gaming revenues of $450 million by 2012. While the Western Europe market is expected to increase from $701 million in 2008 to $862 million by 2011, mobile gaming in North America is projected to grow from $845 million to $1.2 billion in 2011.

Source: Gartner Press Release

Here are the latest subscriber figures for Middle East as published by Hot Telecoms in its latest report.

Source: Gulfnews

Developing Wireless Content

Content Development Kits (CDKs) Download authoring guidelines, tips, techniques and tutorials

Window Mobile 6 Software Development Kits (SDKs) Download Microsoft’s SDKs and corresponding documentation

Developing for Windows Mobile 6 Learn what’s new in the Windows Mobile 6 platform

Nokia S60 Documentation Content development for Nokia S60 mobile device platform

UIQ Content Development UIQ Developer Community portal

Palm OS Hand-held mobile devices and features

Palm Developer Network Developer’s guides for Palm OS platform, Windows Mobile platform and Windows Mobile API guide

Sendo Developer documents for Sendo X and related technologies

Siemens Mobile Developer tools and SDKs

Take Content and Applications Mobile Using Adobe GoLive CS2 (PDF) Adobe’s guide to developing engaging Flash content for mobile devices

Developing Wireless Content using XHTML Mobile Create XHTML Mobile Profile documents that render on multiple wireless devices

XHTML Tutorial W3 Schools’ detailed tutorial about XHTML

DevX Articles and tips about developing wireless content

Developer.com Tutorials and articles about content development for mobile platforms

The Wireles FAQ

Apple Iphone Content Developer’s Resources

As marketers and consumers realize the full potential of the mobile channel, expect more smart marketing to take off on the handset.Came across a very interesting report on trends in Mobile Marketing in 2008. A must read. You can download the full report below.

Download Link: Mobile Marketer’s Mobile Outlook 2008 (pdf)

Source:MobileMarketer

There is an interesting report released recently by Olista.Usability challenges and not pricing, are slowing the adoption of new mobile data services according to a new report issued by service adoption management vendor Olista. The study, based on statistical information documenting 11 million mobile users and hundreds of millions of usage events across five different mobile operator platforms, says that over 60 percent of mobile video and music downloads are made off-portal, which Olista argues graphically illustrates the pressures facing operators in luring subscribers to their own content offerings. Olista says that while 30 percent of consumers downloaded the same content over and over again, 85 percent of mobile TV users abandoned the service after just one viewing, underscoring the user interface difficulties facing mobile multimedia services. Moreover, greater than 70 percent of subscribers who signed up for content bundles failed to actually consume any mobile content, indicating that usability, not price, was the culprit. Olista adds that around 50 percent of all application downloads failed to complete successfully.

Link: Ease-of-use Outranks Price As Key Barrier to Mobile Data Usage

Source: FierceMobileContent