Korean mobile market being turtbulent

Article below is about Korean mobile market situation evoked by iPhone 3Gs. Written in Korea.

http://www.mediatoday.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=84450

2010 Top10 Mobile App (Gartner)

1. 2012 top 10 Mobile App 예측



- Apple 등 HW와 SW/Internet store의 강력한 연계로,

더 이상 모바일 app은 통신사의 전유물이 아니라 제조사까지 확대되고 있는 트렌드 반영

- Top 10 예측: Mobile transfer, LBS, Mobile search, Mobile browsing, Mobile Health Monitoring, Mobile Payment,

Near Field Communication Services, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Instant Messaging, Mobile Music

- 개인적인 견해로는 2010, 2011 등 기존 예측 키워드와 유사해보이나,

기반 기술/컨텐츠 측면에서 보면, 지금까지는 컨셉 단계에서 많이 벗어나지 못했던 cloud computing, 컨텐츠 통합 등의 실구현화로

표면적으로는 기존 어플 기능 추가 통합/연계, 기반 기능으로는 신기술 융합 app 서비스로 발전 방향이 전개될 것으로 보임



1) Mobile transfer: SMS를 통한 금융(money) 전송. 규제/provider 측면에서의 리스크는 존재

2) LBS: 가장 사용자 loyalty 및 파급효과가 큰 항목. social network, entertainment 측면에서 니즈 높음

3) Mobile search: 궁극적인 목적은 sales와 marketing

4) Mobile browsing: 2009년 60% 휴대폰 적용 -> 2013년 80% 휴대폰 적용 예측. 기존 기반 서비스 활용율이 높아 ROI 측면 기대.

B2C 전략이 중심.

5) Mobile Health Monitoring: 마켓 초기 단계. 개발 도상국에서는 fixed network 대비 mobility의 메리트가 중점적 요인

6) Mobile Payment

7) Near Field Communication Services: 10cm 이내 근거리 전송 기술 중심. carrier의 비지니스 모델에 큰 영향.

carrier와 service provider 사이의 비지니스 협약이 큰 이슈

8) Mobile Advertising: 2012년 $7.5억 예측. 무료 모바일 인터넷 컨텐츠/서비스 제공을 위한 비지니스 기반 수단

9) Mobile Instant Messaging: 현재 IM에서 mobile advertising과 SNS와의 연계 기대

10) Mobile Music: 링톤을 넘어선 뮤직 플레이어로서의 역할 니즈. 가격/사용성을 확보한 innovative device-서비스 번들.
iTune의 성공적 사례.



2. 2012 context-aware computing 시장 $12억달러 예측



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[원문]

1. Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Consumer Mobile Applications for 2012
STAMFORD, Conn., November 18, 2009 — Gartner, Inc. has identified the top 10 consumer mobile applications for 2012. Gartner listed applications based on their impact on consumers and industry players, considering revenue, loyalty, business model, consumer value and estimated market penetration.

“Consumer mobile applications and services are no longer the prerogative of mobile carriers,” said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. “The increasing consumer interest in smartphones, the participation of Internet players in the mobile space, and the emergence of application stores and cross-industry services are reducing the dominance of mobile carriers. Each player will influence how the application is delivered and experienced by consumers, who ultimately vote with their attention and spending power.”

“The ultimate competition between industry players is for control of the ‘ecosystem’ and user experience, and the owner of the ecosystem will benefit the most in terms of revenue and user loyalty,” Ms. Shen said. “We predict that most users will use no more than five mobile applications at a time and most future opportunities will come from niche market ‘killer applications’.”

The top 10 consumer mobile applications in 2012 will include:



No. 1: Money Transfer
This service allows people to send money to others using Short Message Service (SMS). Its lower costs, faster speed and convenience compared with traditional transfer services have strong appeal to users in developing markets, and most services signed up several million users within their first year. However, challenges do exist in both regulatory and operational risks. Because of the fast growth of mobile money transfer, regulators in many markets are piling in to investigate the impact on consumer costs, security, fraud and money laundering. On the operational side, market conditions vary, as do the local resources of service providers, so providers need different market strategies when entering a new territory.

No. 2: Location-Based Services
Location-based services (LBS) form part of context-aware services, a service that Gartner expects will be one of the most disruptive in the next few years. Gartner predicts that the LBS user base will grow globally from 96 million in 2009 to more than 526 million in 2012. LBS is ranked No. 2 in Gartner’s top 10 because of its perceived high user value and its influence on user loyalty. Its high user value is the result of its ability to meet a range of needs, ranging from productivity and goal fulfillment to social networking and entertainment.

No. 3: Mobile Search
The ultimate purpose of mobile search is to drive sales and marketing opportunities on the mobile phone. To achieve this, the industry first needs to improve the user experience of mobile search so that people will come back again. Mobile search is ranked No. 3 because of its high impact on technology innovation and industry revenue. Consumers will stay loyal to some search services, but instead of sticking to one or two search providers on the Internet, Gartner expects loyalty on the mobile phone to be shared between a few search providers that have unique technologies for mobile search.

No. 4: Mobile Browsing
Mobile browsing is a widely available technology present on more than 60 percent of handsets shipped in 2009, a percentage Gartner expects to rise to approximately 80 percent in 2013. Gartner has ranked mobile browsing No. 4 because of its broad appeal to all businesses. Mobile Web systems have the potential to offer a good return on investment. They involve much lower development costs than native code, reuse many existing skills and tools, and can be agile — both delivered and updated quickly. Therefore, the mobile Web will be a key part of most corporate business-to-consumer (B2C) mobile strategies.

No. 5: Mobile Health Monitoring
Mobile health monitoring is the use of IT and mobile telecommunications to monitor patients remotely, and could help governments, care delivery organizations (CDOs) and healthcare payers reduce costs related to chronic diseases and improve the quality of life of their patients. In developing markets, the mobility aspect is key as mobile network coverage is superior to fixed network in the majority of developing countries. Currently, mobile health monitoring is at an early stage of market maturity and implementation, and project rollouts have so far been limited to pilot projects. In the future, the industry will be able to monetize the service by offering mobile healthcare monitoring products, services and solutions to CDOs.

No. 6: Mobile Payment
Mobile payment usually serves three purposes. First, it is a way of making payment when few alternatives are available. Second, it is an extension of online payment for easy access and convenience. Third, it is an additional factor of authentication for enhanced security. Mobile payment made Gartner’s top 10 list because of the number of parties it affects — including mobile carriers, banks, merchants, device vendors, regulators and consumers — and the rising interest from both developing and developed markets. Because of the many choices of technologies and business models, as well as regulatory requirements and local conditions, mobile payment will be a highly fragmented market. There will not be standard practices of deployment, so parties will need to find a working solution on a case-by-case basis.



No. 7: Near Field Communication Services
Near field communication (NFC) allows contactless data transfer between compatible devices by placing them close to each other, within ten centimeters. The technology can be used, for example, for retail purchases, transportation, personal identification and loyalty cards. NFC is ranked No. 7 in Gartner’s top ten because it can increase user loyalty for all service providers, and it will have a big impact on carriers' business models. However, its biggest challenge is reaching business agreement between mobile carriers and service providers, such as banks and transportation companies. Gartner expects to see large-scale deployments starting from late 2010, when NFC phones are likely to ship in volume, with Asia leading deployments followed by Europe and North America.



No. 8: Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising in all regions is continuing to grow through the economic downturn, driven by interest from advertisers in this new opportunity and by the increased use of smartphones and the wireless Internet. Total spending on mobile advertising in 2008 was $530.2 million, which Gartner expects to will grow to $7.5 billion in 2012. Mobile advertising makes the top 10 list because it will be an important way to monetize content on the mobile Internet, offering free applications and services to end users. The mobile channel will be used as part of larger advertising campaigns in various media, including TV, radio, print and outdoors.

No. 9: Mobile Instant Messaging
Price and usability problems have historically held back adoption of mobile instant messaging (IM), while commercial barriers and uncertain business models have precluded widespread carrier deployment and promotion. Mobile IM is on Gartner’s top 10 list because of latent user demand and market conditions that are conducive to its future adoption. It has a particular appeal to users in developing markets that may rely on mobile phones as their only connectivity device. Mobile IM presents an opportunity for mobile advertising and social networking, which have been built into some of the more advanced mobile IM clients.

No. 10: Mobile Music
Mobile music so far has been disappointing — except for ring tones and ring-back tones, which have turned into a multibillion-dollar service. On the other hand, it is unfair to dismiss the value of mobile music, as consumers want music on their phones and to carry it around. We see efforts by various players in coming up with innovative models, such as device or service bundles, to address pricing and usability issues. iTunes makes people pay for music, which shows that a superior user experience does make a difference.

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Gartner Says Context-Aware Computing Will Be a $12 Billion Market By 2012
Analysts Discuss Top Tech Trends at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, 17-19 November 2009 in Sydney

Sydney, Australia, November 17, 2009 — 
Enterprises can leverage context-aware computing to better target prospects, increase customer intimacy, and enhance associate productivity and collaboration, according to Gartner, Inc. as organisations begin to use context information to increase top- and bottom-line growth and context providers begin to consolidate and monetize their knowledge of their clients. By 2012, Gartner predicts that context information will be a $12 billion market with at least two global context providers with more than 100 million subscribers each.

Gartner defines context-aware computing as the concept of leveraging information about the end user to improve the quality of the interaction. Emerging context-enriched services will use location, presence, social attributes, and other environmental information to anticipate an end user's immediate needs, offering more-sophisticated, situation-aware and usable functions.

“Although the rudiments of context-aware computing have been around for some time now, it is a disruptive technology that has the potential to be a real ‘game changer’ in terms of competitive advantage,” said Anne Lapkin, research vice president at Gartner, who is in Sydney this week to present at the company’s annual Gartner Symposium/ITxpo event.

“Initial implementations of context-enriched services are already in play, and early adopters will find it easier to implement more-sophisticated services in the future. However, the real promise of context-aware computing will be realised when context information from multiple sources and multiple applications can be used simultaneously — and when trust and privacy issues are addressed.”

The promise of context-aware computing is such that many types of vendor are vying to be context providers and secure a piece of this growing market:

Web vendors are well positioned to become context providers, as they typically have large populations of users about whom they collect a significant amount of context information. They will be able to leverage some of their technology (i.e., instant messaging and social networking), but will need to extend their capabilities to be more context-aware. Gartner believes that any Web vendor that does not become a context provider risks handing over effective customer ownership to someone else — with a significant impact on their mobile and classic Web businesses.
Handset manufacturers have the opportunity to preinstall context data collection and presentation tools on their products. Nokia is exceptionally well placed to exploit the context opportunity because, although it is traditionally a handset manufacturer, it is making a strategic move as an emerging Web vendor with its OVI initiative. Other players that could move toward contextual services relatively easily are Apple and Research in Motion. Both have strong end-to-end control of their hardware and software as well as some experience in hosting server-side infrastructure.
Social networking vendors such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Mixit and Loopt have some, but not all, of the foundations of context. They have rich information about their users, but have weaker access to real-time contextual data, no location-based services of their own and no minimal application delivery mechanisms beyond the browser.
Mobile networks operators are weak in many key areas of context, but they have a substantial number of customers and significant information about them (i.e., calling patterns and subscriber data). They also have one major advantage denied to every other type of vendor they have discussed — they know the location of the handset (approximately) without having to install software on the handset at all. According to Gartner, the big challenge for network operators will be the need to interact cooperatively with a wide range of business partners — not a traditional strength of these organizations.
Communications infrastructure vendors such as Cisco and Alcatel Lucent are making significant investments in context —Cisco with its Mobility engine and Alcatel with its recent mobile advertising offering. Companies with rich presence engines, such as Microsoft and Avaya, can also be significant players. These vendors can provide analytics on user location and will be a key federation point between enterprises, carriers and individual context information.
For enterprises, the challenge will be not only to identify the right business opportunities to leverage context information, but also to choose the right partners and context providers.

“These are by no means trivial challenges, but those enterprises that begin to explore solutions now will be better positioned to exploit the ‘game changing’ potential as context information and context-enriched services become widely available and used,” said Ms. Lapkin.