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The Philippines saw a record breaking US $1 Billion in mobile
data revenues for FY2005. Led by SMS based services, there was
also a significant increase in ringtone and wallpaper downloads.
Maxis
Communications in Malaysia saw its nine-month pre-tax profit up
US$496 million (6 per cent year-on-year). Mobile data
revenue grew 35 per cent to almost US$200 million, in part due
to the 126 per cent growth in SMS services volume.
Japan's DoCoMo plans to buy a 42 percent stake in Tower Records
Japan for $108.2 million, enabling the operator to deploy
handset readers and offer in-store promotions for customers who
use their wallet phones to make purchases at Japan's Tower
Record stores. Purchasing a controlling interest in Tower
Records Japan, enables DoCoMo to better manage and encourage use
of its wallet phones. This deal is DoCoMo's first investment in
a non-mobile enterprise.
Malaysia's Satellite TV service provider ASTRO has leveraged the
mobile VAS technology to good success. Consumers can be reminded
via SMS of their favorite programs by sending a SMS request code
to 32888. SMS reminders will only be sent 1 (one) day
before the show. Each request costs RM 0.50 (about US 0.12
cents), in addition to the standard SMS charge of RM0.10 - 0.20
(as stipulated by service provider) for each SMS request. The
service is available to all Maxis, Celcom, and DiGi subscribers.
In South Korea, leading
carrier SK Telecom announced in June its intent to purchase a 60 percent
stake of YBM Seoul Records for $29.2 million. YBM Seoul will the
right to distribute music content for SK Telecom, including the
carrier's music portal site Melon. It is expected that SK
Telecom will likely use the record label to seed content for its
upcoming WiBro and satellite digital mobile broadcasting (DMB)
wireless services.
In Malaysia, the newspapers carried a interesting story about cellphone pornography over the
weekend (May 29-30, 2005). Apparently the Commercial
Crimes department will be sending out some 400 - 500 officers on
a nationwide sweep to arrest those individuals selling
pornographic video clips and images for mobile phones.
Pricing of these porno clips are about US$1 or 3 for $2.50.
What we find sad is that they are only worried porn content,
which we believe is just a small percentage of the IPR
violations of mobile phone content occurring in Malaysia and the
region. Customers of APRG already know that there is a
thriving gray market for Java games, ringtones, icons and
wallpaper which can be purchased without paying royalties.
We just finished our quarterly
review of VAS pricing around the region. Interesting how
much the mobile content and VAS prices vary from country
to country - for the exact same content, leaving us to ponder if there
are any IPR violations. Consider the prices of a certain
US Top 40
pop song available as a polyphonic ringtone (prices converted US
dollars):
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Singapore -
$1.80
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Malaysia -
$0.80
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Indonesia -
$0.48
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Thailand -
$0.45
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Hong Kong -
$0.39
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Philippines -
$0.37
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India - $0.25
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Vietnam - $.02
ABS-CBN
in Philippines is Southeast Asia's market leader for linking TV
programming to Mobile VAS services. Leveraging everything into
mobile content - from
SMS contents, wallpaper, picture messages, and Java games, this
media company is truly leading edge. What we especially
like is they way every time the consumer interacts with the ABS-CBN,
it's an engaging and immersive experience. ABS-CBN's
brand strategy is about enhancing individual experiences and
understanding consumer's desires and acting on the data to drive
revenue.
Skype
expands SMS service
VoIP software and service provider Skype has initiated a free
trial service that lets users send SMS messages to cell phones.
Before this agreement, Skype users could receive SMS messages
but could not send them. UK based Connectotel is providing Skype
with the SMS messaging service.
India - Greeting
cards losing out to SMS
According to Chand Das, CEO of India based ITC Ltd, a
greeting card company, revenue in the greeting card industry has
steadily declined over the last three years in India
because of SMS and MMS communications. He believes that
the youth market is rapidly switching from greeting cards to SMS
due to their value and convenience.
Mobile
Gaming to Overtake Ringtones in 2006
We are already seeing a significant surge in the mobile
games segment as more and more Asian consumers users are looking
for handsets with Java entertainment features. What are the top
markets for mobile games: India, China, Philippines and
Thailand.
Mobile Operators in Asia Looking to CD Quality Music
Downloads
So many mobile operators in Asia are gearing up to sell
CD-quality songs over their mobile networks to stimulate revenue
and subscriber loyalty. Apple's IPOD may never get a chance in
Asia.
Location
Based Mobile Gaming Attracting Youth Market
YDreams and
Hong Kong mobile provider Sunday launched Undercover, a
massively multiplayer, game for mobile phone subscribers in Hong
Kong. In the game, the players' real location is the attraction
for the games theme of justice and survival.
China Mobile MMS Portal Spam
Sohu.com's wireless service was suspended by China Mobile in August 2004. The 12-month suspension was for the cardinal sin of
sending unsolicited bulk (MMS) to its users in China.
Apparently, the suspension came about after Sohu sent
1,400 unsolicited SMS advertisements for a "I Want Photo"
picture-messaging service. According to recent press reports, Sohu users "have been complaining for at least 18 months that
the company was sending them other messages without their
authorization, and charging the users for those messages".
Charles Zhang, Chairman of Sohu,
commented, "We regret that we received such notification of
sanctions from CMCC. ... we estimate that our wireless revenues
and net profit will be reduced by $1.5 million to $1.8 million
and $1.0 million to $1.3 million respectively as compared to our
guidance released on July 29, 2004".
Child
Finder Mobile Phones
South
Korea's SK Telecom began marketing this month GPS cell
phones to allow parents to monitor their children's whereabouts
by using a device in a new mobile phone that has been designed
for kids. The price of the handset is about $86.
Indonesia Cellular and Mobile
VAS
Want to get in on the ground
floor of SMS generation that will surpass Philippines, the
current SMS capital of the world? Look no further than
Indonesia, where a young generation of 18-30 years have
considerable pent-up demand. We are expecting a 200%
increase in the volume of SMS traffic in Indonesia in 2006.
SMS
Contest Backlash in Asia
In
Malaysia, the Consumers Association of Penang is asking for the
Government to regulate SMS contests, perhaps even banning SMS
contests altogether due to the element of gambling involved. There
was a recent Consumer Claims Tribunal case of the young girl who
spent over US $5,000 to send almost 29,000 SMS messages for an
SMS contest. Philippines had similar SMS gambling
problems with the government receiving numerous complaints
bout the proliferation of promotional trivia games using SMS.
The heart of the issue is that the mechanics of these games are
not transparent.
Google
and Singapore's M1 leading the way for Mobile Content Searching
M1
has partnered with Google to provide Google Image Search to its
mobile phone customers. The partnership is the first for
Google in Asia and allows M1 customers to use the Google
search engine to access information and images from their WAP/
GPRS-enabled mobile phones. The charge for this service is - M1's
standard GPRS rate of 1cent/ kb.
This is an interesting approach to improving the customer
experience in the mobile data service arena. M1 understands the
need to drive data revenues and is making it as easy as
possible for subscribers to find and obtain mobile data
such as graphics. We wonder if the next step is to search the
ever popular ringtones and music..
Malaysia
SMS Price War
The three mobile operators in
Malaysia have finally caught on to the importance of SMS and its
vital role in attracting the important but elusive youth
market. The SMS price war in Malaysia began a few
months ago when Maxis dropped its SMS pricing for its Hotlink
prepaid brand to 7 sen (little less than 2 US cents). Digi
quickly matched prices. Over the last six weeks, Celcom,
the number 2 cellular operator, has been aggressively promoting
a 5 sen (about US 1.3 cents) SMS price point.
Malaysia youth are rapidly following their cousins in
Philippines in becoming a SMS generation. Eschewing voice
calls for the coolness of SMS, the Malaysian youth market
is embracing SMS as emphatically as they have adopted hip hop
(which is quite extensive)...
SMS Football
For young men in Asia, there is
only one killer SMS application - football. 2 out of every 5 guys
we talked to last month told us that football / soccer, is
the only mobile VAS application they are willing to pay extra
for each month.
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