♦  Telecommunications Research

Wireless Digital Music

VGF-WA1 wireless digital music streamer shows that convergence has become an unavoidable issue in the audio industry as well. VGF-WA1, also marketed as a ‘wireless speaker’, demonstrates Sony’s strategy to boost the declining audio market by converging it with wireless technology and PC, which has become the main tool in our daily lives.

The device is appealing to the convenience-loving today’s consumer, as it enables streaming music directly from the Wi-Fi connected PC, bringing one’s personalized music in MP3 or ACC format to any room in the house, without the trouble of moving the music from PC to the player. This means that there will be less CDs and the frequency of PC and audio usage will increase.

Through the device launch, Sony seems to be trying to extend its business by connecting the music downloading market with the traditional audio devices, which market has been declining. For the future, it can be interpreted that Sony will increase integrating its existing device infrastructure into the wireless network and be active in M2M convergence and M2M data communications segment as well as expand its existing contents business, including music and gaming, based on the infrastructures and wireless networks.

from Analysis on Wireless Digital Music Streamer (RO-0015)

VoIP in China

One of the significant wild cards in the global VoIP market is China. There is little doubt that tens of millions of Chinese Internet users will embrace Internet voice services, but what is less clear is how many will be prepared to pay for such services. China-based Shanghai iResearch estimates that PC-to-PC VoIP users in China currently number over 40 million, and will rise to 80 million by 2008.

Recent research by In-Stat suggests that two distinct paid VoIP markets are developing in China - the legal and the illegal. According to the Chinese Ministry of Information, only traditional telecom companies can provide VoIP services. However, PC-tolandline services, such as the Skype Out service, have emerged in China and already have over one million subscribers, according to In-Stat.The forecasts below show that VoIP offered by telecom companies will play second fiddle to virtual VoIP providers in China. It will be interesting to see if Skype (operating as Tom Online in China) escapes the ire of its telecom competitors or the relevant regulators in the years ahead.

from Broadband Services: VoIP and IPTV (EM-2279)

Global Handset Trends

In the first half of 2006, Nokia and Motorola grew their global market shares by concentrating on low cost handsets. This became a hot strategic issue for the Korean vendors, such as Samsung and LG, which were trying to find ways how to correspond to the low cost handset market and how to restructure the global channels in order to compete with the Big Two. As a result of this, the polarization of vendors became even more distinctive, having serious impacts on smaller vendors such as VK mobile in Korea (bankrupt), Pantech&Curitel (walk out), and BenQ mobile (filed for insolvency).

In the second half of 2006, even though Samsung’s portfolio was enhanced with some new models and LG’s strategic phones were doing well in the markets, the companies’ concern over low cost handsets and hunting for new distribution channels continued. It seems that the ULCH market will continue to be a main issue in 2007 as well, backed by Nokia 1101, MOTOFONE F3, and W220. It is predicted that the replacement demand will outrun the new phone demand, but in the emerging markets, thanks to the low cost handsets, new phone demand will be the leading trend. In addition, handset OEM/ODM market in Taiwan is estimated to continue growing in high figures during 2007.

from Global Handset Trends 2006-2007 (RO-0011)

Mobile Advertising

Even though brands talk of using mobile to "extend" their Web efforts, the reality is that there are some real technical differences between what can and what cannot be attempted in a mobile environment.Take handsets. Depending on what kind of applications, screen resolution and operating system reside on a handset, the marketer is constrained by the type of campaigns that can be run. Almost every new handset on the market can handle short messaging service (SMS), with many of them sporting color screens that can handle wallpaper or screensavers. For more sophisticated applications such as multimedia messaging service (MMS), a mobile camera is required along with internal software. Not surprisingly, the pool of potential marketing campaigns shrinks as marketers field more complex marketing experiences such as mobile search or games. For marketers, keeping track of handset functionality and penetration is critical for designing experiences that live well on the current state of handsets.

Handsets are only one kind of real estate for marketers to master. Another involves how a customer makes contact with a brand - typically through a common short code (CSC), a text message or a mobile banner ad. For marketing purposes, CSCs are what wireless subscribers send to access a variety of mobile content and services. Similar to a Web site’s URL, a CSC can be promoted to route end users to a common point of interaction.Any company or brand can acquire or lease a CSC from a supplier - the Common Short Code Administration (CSCA) in the US and other country-specific groups in Europe and Asia. Short codes come in two general flavors: random and vanity. Random CSCs (eg, "48937") are numbers that a governing body such as the CSCA assigns, whereas vanity CSCs (eg, "7827," or "STAR," for American Idol) are targeted to specific brand goals.

from Mobile Marketing and Advertising (EM-2261)

Mobile Market Forecasts

Currently, the Japanese mobile market is driven by several factors. For example, since 2005, easy-to - use mobile handsets with limited features have been released, targeted at seniors, and in late 2005 and early 2006, handsets with designs and GPS functions suited to children gained in popularity. Additionally, NTT DoCoMo and au successfully appealed to new customer groups while promoting family subscriptions, and handsets and tariff plans tailored to business users were introduced in 2006.

from Japanese Mobile Market Forecast 2003-2010, First Half 2006 (RO-1713)