Mobile Point View by Paul Ruppert

Beijing's Birds Nest Mobile Bonanza: 5.5 calls per seat, $500,000 an hour

 

Half a Million Calls, from 90,000 people over 4 hours!

According to China Mobile, close to 500,000 calls were placed from the Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium during the Olympics Opening Ceremony.

Everyone in the stadium made over 5 calls over the four hour period, or roughly 1.4 calls per hour by every attendee.

$600,000 per hr
Boys and girls that translates to over $2.5 million in revenue for just the opening ceremonies from one venue. That includes over 250,000 unique registered international roaming services users during the opening ceremony.  You wonder who they were calling all around the world. Nice revenue stream.

24,000 unique users made calls during  the Olympics closing ceremony, which included 20,000 roaming service users.

The company says that it achieved a 100 percent connection rate and only 0.27 percent of calls were dropped by the network.

Remarkably, some 1.2 million China Mobile users watched the games on their mobile phones and 13 million users received Olympic video newsletters via their mobile phones.

Mobile Advertising: Snap, Send, Get.

There's much buzz about the ever increasing impact of short code applications in mobile advertising and marketing. Sending simple texts messages when you see an advertisement in the world of old media such as magazines and newspapers, and engaging the brand through new media mobile. Look at ShopText as a great example of this and their campaigns with Cosmopolitan and other Hearst magazine properties. An emerging leader in the mobile short code marketing category.

Yet, short codes may be too early and too late. Now emerging mobile technology surrounding QR codes and dot matrix codes are starting to demonstrate their technological innovation. Instead of six to 10 key punches, now you can easily take a picture of a code and have the same functionality.

While at CTIA IT in San Francisco three weeks ago, I saw the next iteration of image recognition, Snaptell. The Snaptell solution doesn't even need the code. You just snap a photo of the advertisement and you're off. One touch functionality.

Listen to my interview with G.D. Ramkumar, the CEO of Snaptel ( 9 mins)

Interactive Media in Magazines
You can see how Snaptell works in the real world in the September 9, 2008 issue of ESPN Magazine. They've partnered with Snaptell with all their advertisers for this issue. The reader snaps a picture of an ad their interested in. Their phone is directed to a mobile web landing page, and they get more information about the product/service plus cool rewards, like ring tones, screen savers, games, ring back tones,  free-miums! 

In the background, the brand is able to easily access detailed information about the user, such as type of handset, network subscription, and other data which the reader might be interested in sharing, essentially all the actionable metrics which make these mobile advertising offerings of such great contextual value.   Snaptell provides an end to end solution for mobile marketing that includes campaign management, carrier gateway integration, content delivery, and an intuitive, easy to use interface for the advertising agency to set up a campaign.  Essentially the "snap on" Snaptell solution puts simple short codes to shame. 

How'd they do that?
The technology behind mobile image recognition is quite intriguing. Interlaced into the advertising image are feature points which are picked up by the phone, and compared against a data base, with over a billion components of images. Within a second it identifies and recognizes the feature points and activates an interactive instruction application. You don't even need to have the full image or even a majority of the image in picture, you can crop it, capture just a corner, and it still works. The payload is through an MMS message being sent of the image.  The coolest part is that it doesn't need to be still images such as a magazine or print ad.

It works with video, too!  Just watch a tv commercial, click an image, et voila, and actionable event is being requested of you. Pretty slick technology. 

Look for Snaptell in Men's Health, ESPN Magazine, Wired, and other magazines in the future.

Mobile Advertising: Bango Measures Exposure, Pursuasion and Transactions

Understanding how analytic metrics illuminate and profile users, with a measure of customer acquisition costs is a key performance indicator for advertising whether it is traditional print, fixed billboard or media such as TV and radio. The same now applies with the emerging mobile advertising channel.

If the real value exchange between mobile and advertising is to be fully capitalized, new data sets need to be developed for the advertising and brand industries that drive this space.

An on-going interest of mine has been how the mobile segment is moving to solve core questions like: a) how many people have been exposed to an advertisement? And (b) how effective is the advertising?  (c) what do my buyers look like across a score of indicies?  These are cornerstone questions to advertising, and nothing has changed now that it mobile is increasingly part of the advertising mix. 

As part of my quest I had the opportunity sit down recently with Bango's Anhil Malhotra. Bango is paving the way in mobile advertising metrics, working with the Media Rating Council and Mobile Marketing Association, moving beyond simple CPM (cost per 1k exposures), PPC (pay per click), CPC (cost per call) and CPA (cost per action) metrics to establish new audience verification metrics for mobile. 

Listen here [8.5 min]

         to my podcast with Anil Malhotra, SVP of Marketing with Bango (recorded at the Harvard Club of New York) as we explore the future of mobile advertising metrics, and how there is no end to the appetite of what people want when it comes precise and concise audience verifiability.

The reality is that mobile provides much more power in the battle from exposure to persuasion to transactions. Listen and find out how. 

Paul Ruppert chosen as Managing Editor for Mobile Messaging 2.0

I've been a contributor to Mobile Messaging 2.0, a corporate sponsored blog covering the mobile industry since September 2007. Last month Beeline Communications and the blog's sponsor, Airwide Solutions, chose me to be the new Managing Editor of the blog which has 12 paid contributing analysts of the mobile industry.  Click here for my most recent post at MM2, "China's Black Market iPhones surpass 1 million.

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One Year in my Blog Life: Keeping Score at Mobile Point View

Readers from 128 Countries

Journalistic cycles  are often driven by calender milestones so today I celebrate my first anniversary as a blogger--albeit it slightly tardy. 

I started Mobile Point View in April of 2007 primarily to frame and define my "personal brand", project and shape awareness of my industry perspective and "thought leadership", enabling me to keep my eye focused on the mobile industry and global business trends through a discipline to discuss my views.

Along the journey I found it also fed internal motivations such as a love/hate relationship with writing, and my wanderlust for "Adventure Roads" and "Adventure Capitalism."

Plus, it feeds my spirit to learn more about other cultures and keep my skills sharp in making connections--both technical and human.  I've been told I've got a combinatorial world view which my blogging reflects, being part travelogue, wireless industry and global commerce analysis, pus a passionate interest in high growth markets such as China, Africa, and the Middle East.

Recognitions & Connections

An unexpected turn along the path has been the recognition of my views and writings by technoscenti like Om Malik of DigOm, Gerry Purdee of Forrester Research and mobilista Rudy De Waele. A surprising approach by Mobile Messaging 2.0 to contribute to that corporate sponsored blog has led to additional "thought leadership" and recently my being tapped to be the Managing Editor of Mobile Messaging 2.0. So now I'm a "professional" journalist, meaning my meanderings put some coin in my pocket.

Another unexpected consequence of having a cyberspace billboard has been the people I've become acquainted with--gratifyingly in other countries--who have graciously shared their time, interests and expertise with me by reaching out and establishing a personal connection as result of my views, especially Lars in Tokyo, Ben in Beijing, Mikki in Hong Kong, Tarek in Egypt, Feng in Beijing, James in London, and Mohammed in Iraq.

Reflecting a modicum of success, the connectedness of the mobile industry and power of the internet, the number of others who I have met at conferences who entered a conversation with "I know you, I've read your blog!" has been surprising and energizing.

What I'm most proud of is being relevant and interesting to readers from 128 countries.   

After a year of blogging, I've got a slurry of mixed metrics on total visits (over 100,000 ), page views, time on blog, google juice, etc., but the one which I'm most proud of is the reflection of my reach and global view point.   Having readers from so many countries reflects my purpose, passion and pursuits to illuminate the power of mobile communications to consumers and its fundamentally global characteristics. 

Interesting Quirks of Where My Readers Are 

Some interesting aspects of my readership include:  9,600 visits from readers in India, 900 visits from readers in Pakistan, 30 visits from readers in Myanmar, over 740 visits from readers in Iran, and 400 visits from readers in Nepal. I've got one regular reader in Foggaret el Arab, the dead middle of Algeria with a population of 4,300. The snowiest reader must be in Bathurst Inlet, Nunavut, Canada--probably someone visiting the Lodge.

I guess that reflects the power of the web, the strength of interest in mobile communications, and once in a while my ability to strike a chord which resonates with a variety of people in diverse international locations. 

Here's a tally of reader countries as of June 2008

A Year in the Blog Life
	Visitors from 128 Countires
Americas (25)	Europe (40)	Asia (26)	Middle East (11)	Africa (26)
US	UK	Australia	Afghanistan	Algeria
Barbados	Andorra	Bangladesh	Bahrain	Botswana
Bolivia	Aserbaijian	Brunei	Egypt	Cameroon
Brazil	Austria	Cambodia	Iran	Canary Islands
Canada	Azores	China	Iraq	Cote D'Ivoire
Cayman Islands	Belgium	Fiji	Israel	Djibouti
Chile	Bosnia	Guam	Jordan	Ethopia
Columbia	Bulgaria	Hong Kong	Kuwait	Gambia
Costa Rica	Czech Republic	India	Oman	Ghana
Dominican Republic	Denmark	Indonesia	Qatar	Libya
Ecuador	Estonia	Japan	UAE	Madagasacar
Grenada	Faeroe  Islands	Kazakhsatan	Yemen	Mali
Guatemala	Finland	Korea		Mauritius
Haiti	France	Laos		Moambique
Honduras	Georgia	Malaysia		Moldova
icaragua	Germany	Marutius		Morocco
Jamiaca	Gibraltar	Myanmar		Mutitania
Martinique	Greece	Nepal		Nigeria
Mexico	Iceland	New Zealand		S. Africa
Paraguay	Ireand	Pakistan		Senegal
Peru	Italy	Philippines		Sudan
Puerto Rico	Latvia	Singapore		Swaziland
St. Vincent	Lichtenstein	Taiwan		Tanzania
Trinidad	Lithuania	Tajikistan		Togo
Urguay	Luxemburg	Thailand		Tunisia
Venezuela	Macedonia	Uzbekistan		Uganda
	Mallorca	Vietnam		Zaire
	Malta
	Monaco
	Netherlands
	Norway
	Poland
	Portugal
	Romania
	Russia
	Serbia
	Spain
	Sweden
	Switzerland
	Turkey
	Ukraine

Africa: More Mobile IPOs than the US?

In mid June, two IPOs occurred on African stock exchanges for shares in major cellular/mobile network operators. Celtel Zambia offered 20% of its equity on the Lusaka Stock Exchange and Safaricom, partially owned by Vodafone Kenya, released 25% of its shares on the Nairobi Stock Exchange.

Zain Group, the prominent Middle Eastern operator's value stake in Celtel Zambia grew to 78.9% with Vodafone now owning 35% of Safaricom.

Both operators are major market leaders in their respective countries. In Q4 2007, Safaricom had 9.25 million subscribers, controlling 81% of the Kenyan market. Celtel Kenya had 2.1 million subscribers or 18% of market share in Kenya. Celtel that dominates Zambia with 1.97 million subscribers, commanding a 74% market share. Its nearest competitor is MTN Zambia with 262,000 subscribers for the same period, a weak 10% of the market.

Clearly, these market positions make both companies attractive propositions for IPO. With Kenya’s mobile penetration rate at just 30% of the population and Zambia’s at 22% there is still upside expansion opportunities. In Lusaka, Celtel is only the 19th company to be listed on its stock exchange, a further indication of the extent to which the wireless industry is a driving force in African economies.

Mobile Carriers of the Dragon & Elephant: Global CapEx & Rev Leaders

Infonetics Research reports that worldwide service provider capex (capital expenditures) totaled $248.8 billion in 2007, a 7% increase from 2006. Infonetics' report projects a spike in worldwide carrier capex in 2008, followed by a plateau in 2010 and a decline in 2011, and emphasizes that the weak US dollar is inflating current growth rates in Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, India, and Japan.

Their analysis indicates that the mobile industry is in the fourth year of an investment phase, and we may be reaching the plateau this year in both North America and Europe, where large service providers' capital intensity (the ratio of capex to revenue) will likely be as low as 12%.

But the hyper growth economies of China and India will drive a significant jump in carrier capex in 2008 as a result of network construction projects combined with currency appreciation against the US dollar, meaning the Chinese RMB and Indian Rupee are buying much more these days. "Both countries are still posting double-digit revenue growth in their native currencies, which, converted in US dollars creates a big spike in worldwide carrier revenue as well," said Stéphane Téral, principal analyst at Infonetics Research.

Interesting Aspects of the report include:

Telecom service providers earned a combined $1.5 trillion in annual worldwide revenue in 2007, up 10% from 2006, with currency appreciation making up the bulk of the growth, while the rest came from wireless services.
Carriers are increasingly investing in application software (vs. hardware) for media rich applications such as content, storage, and security for broadband based wireline and wireless services
Current investment drivers for carrier spending: convergence between IT, media, Internet, and telecom, which is adding new competitive pressures to carriers, and the shift from legacy TDM to next generation IP networks
The world's 10 largest service providers (ranked by 2007 revenue) are AT&T, Verizon, NTT, Deutsche Telekom, France Télécom, Vodafone, Telefónica, China Mobile, BT, and Sprint.
The next largest service providers include Telecom Italia, Comcast, and KDDI, which, according to their most recent growth rates, are poised to join the top 10.

The Asia Pacific telecom industry is squeezed between 2 opposite market forces: a saturated market made of Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan characterized by flat to decreasing capex, and a fast growing market driven by China and India, characterized by double digit growth for both capex and revenue

Caribbean and Latin America (CALA) service provider revenue jumped 29% between 2006 and 2007
Mobile infrastructure makes up the bulk of total equipment capex in 2007, accounting for about 20%, followed by voice infrastructure, optical equipment, and broadband aggregation equipment

WiMAX equipment spending by service providers as a portion of total carrier capex has roughly doubled each year since 2004, and will continue to increase its share in the near term, driven by major WiMAX projects in the US, India, and Latin America.

Notwithstanding the constant barrage of negative coverage of the price of oil, rising inflation, and the bursting of the housing bubble in the US, UK, Spain and elsewhere, the mobile industry still reflects people's needs to communicate.

Tough personal quarter

Loss of Matriarchs 

You may have noticed my postings have fallen off the last few months. Its been a difficult 90 days for me and my attention has been elsewhere than the machinations of the mobile industry.

In mid-April my mother, Pierette Bougnotteau Ruppert passed away at the full age of 86. She had lived in her native France for the last 33 years, and the last decade of her life was lost to Alzhiemers. Upon hearing the news, I quickly decamped to Paris, then Caen, where she spent the last years of her life. I brought my 12 year old son for his first visit to France, and dragged him to all the places in Paris where I spent so many summers as a child with my mother while she spent time at Elizabeth Arden. She was a cosmetics sales rep at a series of department stores in Cleveland, Ohio where I grew up, being in the workplace was more her liking than staying at home. April in Paris is rainy and grey, but we relived the times I spent in the Trulleries gardens sailing toy boats and visiting the Egyptian section of the Louvre--he seems to have inherited my interest in mummies, pharos and pyramids.

Then in mid June, my mother in law passed away suddenly as the result of a car accident injuries. She was quite close with my wife, the oldest of four daughters. I knew her for 34 years, I first met my wife when I was 16, and she was both a teacher and an entrepreneur. The sudden loss put much of "normal life" on hold as we decamped to Cleveland. She touched many--here's the obituary in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Working through the grief within the extended family as well as the adminstrative aspects of closing off two lives. Just starting to get back into my past rhythms and hope to be back at speed soon.

Paul

Oprah Thinks Pink

Oprah Winfrey gave the commencement address on Sunday at Stanford University. She distributed Daniel Pink's "A Whole New Mind" along with Eckhart Tolles' "A New Earth."

Back in November I read Pink's book and wrote a book review on Amazon that you can read here.      Quick Review: The future belongs to those who can craft symphonies from unrelated categories (as opposed to those who just analyze alone), who have narrative aptitude for story (instead of who just read power point slides), and who have empathy to solidify relationships (as opposed to transactional engagements)--they will be the masters of the this Conceptual Age.

Well worth the time, great afternoon read on the beach or in the hammock.

MTN Deals OFF!: Bharti & Switch in SA

According to Reuter's Bharti has withdrawn from the discussions with MT over the weekend. Shares in Bharti rose 4.2 percent to 872 rupees, their highest since May 6, when they slumped more than 5 percent on news that Bharti was in talks with MTN. So, Bharti is off the table. Cue #2 in India, Reliance enters the picture.

South Africa's MTN is now reporting that it has initiated talks with the #2 Indian mobile operator Reliance Communications (RLCM.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) that could create a $66 billion emerging markets telecoms group if the two companies merge.

A combination of MTN, valued at $38 billion at Friday's close, and Reliance, valued at $28 billion, would create a top ten global industry player to rival Japan's NTT DoCoMo in market value. In terms of subscribers, a merged group would fall just below Deutsche Telekom -- as the world's seventh largest mobile opertor conglomerate. Sources indicate that Reliance would put in play a different structure than the aforementioned Bharti deal. Finacial wags and analysts had speculated that Bharti was eyeing a 51 percent stake in MTN and Bharti said it had pulled out of talks after the South African firm suggested it become an MTN subsidiary, essentially the prey transforming the predator in this play.

Shares in Reliance immediately fell as the markets displayed worry over the costs of a deal while MTN stock fell 7.6%. It was expected that the Bharti deal drove  speculation over the potential premium from a Bharti buyout. MTN is seeking new markets outside Africa and the Middle East and will likely push to retain its brand and culture.

"Whatever the shape of the company moving forward, there is little doubt that the retention of the MTN brand and culture would be two of the most important aspects executive management and shareholders should ensure," Frost & Sullivan analyst Lindsey Mc Donald said.

Reliance Communications and MTN said earlier that the two groups had entered into exclusive talks about potentially combining their businesses. A 45-day exclusivity period will be in force, during which neither can talk to any other entity, so the speculation over Vodafone or China Mobile is now mute. Reliance Communications Chairman Anil Ambani, one of India's richest men, said a deal with MTN could "provide investors, customers and the people of both companies a global platform for exponential growth".

Cobra brings down the Rhino?

MTN had 68.2 million subscribers as of March, compared with Reliance Communications' 48 million. "Reliance Communications is smaller than MTN, and lacks the financial muscle for a takeover, but it is not going to want to be a subsidiary, either," said Ravi Dodhia, a telecoms analyst at KR Choksey Securities in the Reuters piece. Speculation centers on whether the two firms were likely to create a new company with MTN taking a 51 percent stake.

"If MTN is looking to remain listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and remain a South African company and be the aggressor in this deals, having this sort of exclusivity says to everyone else: 'You guys don't approach us, don't bother, we are not looking to be acquired'," Ambekar said. Harit Shah at India's Angel Broking, said Reliance and MTN might swap shares, as the foreign holding in Reliance Communications was considerably lower than in Bharti Airtel, a factor that was seen as a possible roadblock for Bharti's attempted deal.

Foreign ownership of Indian telecom firms is capped at 74 percent, and Bharti is 30.5 percent owned by Singapore Telecommunications.Shares in Reliance Communications, fell 5.7 percent to their lowest since May 12 while in Johannesburg, shares in MTN fell as 7.6 percent to 145.11 rand, their lowest since April 30.

Looks like the financial markets are disappointed that MTN has called off its talks with Bharti. Analysts had speculated that Bharti Airtel was engineering a merger that would value MTN at up to $50 billion.

Recall that last year, Bharti it lost the $11 billion race for majority control of India's third-largest mobile provider to Vodafone , but has made several smaller overseas acquisitions, including a UK-based WiMax operator of 4G services. India's wireless market grew 25-fold between 2002-07, ringing up record profits for telecom firms, but that growth is expected to slow as the percentage of the population with a mobile phone tops 40 percent by 2010 from 22 percent now.

In contrast, MTN is present in some of the world's most lucrative markets, such as Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Zambia and Uganda, and has said it is keen to pursue more expansion opportunities in emerging markets.

Stay tuned.