Observations from Westminster eForum Keynote Seminar: Smartphones, tablets and apps ‐ the future for mobile

Observations from Westminster eForum Keynote Seminar: Smartphones, tablets and apps ‐ the future for mobile

This insight is based on a seminar earlier this week on the rather broad topic of “the future of mobile”. Note that full transcripts will be available for anyone who is interested in learning more about the areas of discussion.

The first thing that stood out was the range of attendees. There was the expected presence from journalists, mobile operators, consultancies and application developers but the audience also included several government departments including the MOD and the Cabinet Office. This alone is an indication of the ubiquitous nature of mobile.

An interesting experiment was conducted in the audience where we were asked to unlock our mobiles and pass it to the person to our left – we were then asked how we felt. The mobile is such a personal item, more so than anything else I would argue, this simple act invoked anxiety and concern, some even said it felt like their privacy had been invaded. Your mobile is the one item you rarely have more than 2 metres away from you. It is typically the last thing you look at before you go to bed and the first thing you look at when you wake up. It has replaced your alarm clock, your watch, your camera, your diary, your address book, your map, your morning paper ….. and in the future it may just replace your wallet.

During the sessions there were a couple of things that stuck out as worthy of further thought:

 • The dominance of Blackberry: so much emphasis is put on Apple and their products it is easy to forget about the Blackberry market but you should do so at your peril. They are no longer the business only, rather boring, less appealing little brother of the iPhone; instead they are a powerful competitor offering solutions to all ages groups and demographics . Did you know they are:
  o #1 in terms of users of Twitter
  o #1 in terms of engagement with Facebook (Blackberry Facebook users are 3 times more interactive in their engagement than non-Blackberry users)
  o #1 smartphone in the UK in 2010
  With the Playbook arriving later this year promising a fully engaging web experience and a $150m application partner fund to be launched in June this looks to be an exciting year ahead for the Blackberry market.

 • The shift of influence and power in the mobile market: people no longer choose their phone based on the handset manufacturer or mobile operator. Now they are choosing it based on the applications they can gain access to. Skype has helped 3 to attract new high usage customers as well as reducing the level of churn observed within this subscriber base. Advertisers are beginning to understand the relative success factors in targeted advertising – it’s interesting to note that it was claimed that whilst 14% of people will believe an advert 70% of people will believe a recommendation. The shift of influence is moving from flashy costly adverts to building a community of personal marketeers.

 • The importance of NFC going forward: this was covered in last weeks digest but the seminar offered a window in to the types of services this will enable including special offers tagged to advertising boards, mobile commerce applications  (did you know that several Ferraris were bought using mobile devices last year), m-ticketing, loyalty points, sharing of data, events management.

 • Demand vs capacity: Demand for mobile capacity is predicted to out strip capacity by mid 2013. Arqiva and Alcatel-Lucent launched earlier this year a Long Term Evolution (LTE) wireless technology trial in West Wales. It uses the 800MHz spectrum freed up by digital TV switchover and can deliver speeds of over 50Mbit/s. LTE is one of the technologies that can deliver “4G” mobile services. There will be a 4G auction to release more spectrum to enable higher data rate connectivity however this is likely to open significant debate between the mobile operators and OFCOM. There is clearly unrest in the industry at the imbalance of relative existing specturm allocations following the merger of Orange and T-mobile. In addition is likely that there will be 4 operators bidding for 3 spectrum blocks. Given the obvious cost/benefit variances in serving the urban, suburban and rural geotypes the spectrum auction is likely to expect some assurance from bidders of wide spread coverage and perhaps will need further
  collaboraction between the network operators. All of this is likely to mean disputes, legal challenge and delays to the licensing process.

 • Level of uncertainty: for the first time there is a real feeling of uncertainty around the mobile market. The level of disruption is being felt by all players. No one knows what this market will look like in 18 months time. It’s not clear who are going to be the winners and the losers. There is significant opportunity but a large variety of players fighting for a limited amount of disposable income. It is an industry that is prone to fashion and no one can really tell which one will take off.