Skip to main content

Global Adoption of Mobile Value-Added Services

Emerging markets will be the key driver in the growth of global mobile value-added service (VAS) revenues from $200 billion in 2009 to $340 billion in 2014, according to the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media.

China, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Russia, Poland and the Ukraine are expected to account for 36 percent of the global mobile data revenues in 2014.

“Compared to the developed world, there are very different economic, social, demographic and cultural challenges in the emerging markets. In many countries, 3G services are still not available, or are limited to mobile subscribers in larger cities," according to Shailendra Pandey, senior analyst at Informa.

Therefore, operators have to depend on 2G services such as SMS, USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems, to be able to drive mass market adoption of their mobile VAS, and to successfully reach subscribers in smaller towns and rural areas.

Mobile operators and service providers in emerging markets have been more innovative and proactive in developing and deploying new mobile VAS than their counterparts in the developed world. In particular, operators are seeing strong uptake of utility type services including mobile payments, P2P funds transfer and agricultural information services.

The reason being that these services are having a big impact on the day-to-day lives of the local population and are contributing to the social and economic development of the population in these markets.

Services such as M-PESA from Safaricom in Kenya, the Rural Information Service from China Mobile, the Please-Call-Me service from MTN in South Africa, and the CellBazaar service from GrameenPhone in Bangladesh are some good examples.

Mobile social networking is also growing in emerging markets, but most of the services are instant messaging chat applications. One of the most successful service examples is China Mobile's IM service called Fetion, which has over 100 million registered users. The addressable market for the Fetion service is large as it can work using IVR, GPRS and SMS access modes.

Mobile App stores have so far not received the same attention from the operators in emerging markets as they have in the U.S. and Western Europe, but some large operators like China Mobile have already launched their own app stores.

Earlier this year,China Mobile has collaborated with Nokia to launch MM-Ovi. It has been reported that over 4 million mobile apps had been downloaded from this App store by March 2010.

With high market saturation and limited growth prospects in developed countries, the emerging markets are becoming a key focus for mobile industry players -- including operators, handset manufacturers and infrastructure vendors, as well as the VAS platform and technology vendors.

Popular posts from this blog

How Savvy Pioneers Lead the Future of Work

Hybrid and fully remote work are inevitable in the Global Networked Economy where high-performance talent demands flexibility from employers. To enable these progressive work models, organizations are investing in a wide range of technologies to support more agile types of employment.  According to the latest worldwide market study by International Data Corporation (IDC), leading organizations will spend nearly $1 billion on the Future of Work (FoW) in 2023 -- that's an increase of 18.8 percent over 2022. Future of Work Market Development "Work models continue to evolve, but 37 percent of decision-makers in a recent global survey note that Remote and Hybrid work models will be an embedded part of accepted work practices, supported by a continued shift to the cloud, increasingly instrumented and interconnected physical workplaces, and intelligent digital workspaces," said Holly Muscolino, group vice president at IDC . According to the IDC assessment, organizations must mak

Human Resource Transformation Enabled by IT

Many senior executives are taking a proactive approach to digital business transformation in order to achieve their strategic goals. Delivering revenue growth and profitability is now imperative for every function, including Human Resources (HR). The top 3 priority HR technologies this year are skills management, learning experience platforms, and internal talent marketplaces, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. "With a tumultuous global economy, HR technology leaders face a balancing act in 2023," said Sam Grinter, director at Gartner . "Leaders must anticipate greater levels of accountability and demand for measurable outcomes to justify new technology investments." HR Transformation Market Development Forty-four percent of HR leaders report driving better business outcomes is their number one strategic priority for HR technology transformation over the next three years. Growth in headcount and skills (26 percent) and cost optimization (17 p

Global EV Charging Revenue to Exceed $300B

During 2022, fuel prices increased very quickly, partly due to a number of macroeconomic reasons. In fact, the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic are still impacting fuel prices, with many oil refineries having reduced capacity due to a prior fall in demand. Those significant events and other trends have created a demand for a growing variety of Electric Vehicles (EVs). While EVs have existed for decades, they really became a viable option for more consumers during the past five years. However, although EVs are suitable for some buyer needs, their usability is constrained by the current availability of battery charging infrastructure. EV Charging Market Development According to the latest worldwide market study by Juniper Research, revenue from electric vehicle charging will exceed $300 billion globally by 2027 -- that's up from $66 billion in 2023. Regardless, the Juniper analysis found that fragmentation in battery charging networks is restricting further EV adoption in some