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Wireless Digital Music
VGF-WA1 wireless digital music streamer shows that convergence has become an
unavoidable issue in the audio industry as well. VGF-WA1, also marketed as a
‘wireless speaker’, demonstrates Sony’s strategy to boost the declining audio market
by converging it with wireless technology and PC, which has become the main tool in
our daily lives.
The device is appealing to the convenience-loving today’s consumer, as it enables
streaming music directly from the Wi-Fi connected PC, bringing one’s personalized
music in MP3 or ACC format to any room in the house, without the trouble of moving
the music from PC to the player. This means that there will be less CDs and the
frequency of PC and audio usage will increase.
Through the device launch, Sony seems to be trying to extend its business by
connecting the music downloading market with the traditional audio devices, which
market has been declining. For the future, it can be interpreted that Sony will increase
integrating its existing device infrastructure into the wireless network and be active in M2M convergence and M2M data communications segment as well as expand its
existing contents business, including music and gaming, based on the infrastructures
and wireless networks.
from Analysis on Wireless Digital Music Streamer
(RO-0015)
VoIP in China
One of the significant wild cards in the global VoIP market is China.
There is little doubt that tens of millions of Chinese Internet users
will embrace Internet voice services, but what is less clear is how
many will be prepared to pay for such services. China-based
Shanghai iResearch estimates that PC-to-PC VoIP users in China
currently number over 40 million, and will rise to 80 million by 2008.
Recent research by In-Stat suggests that two distinct paid VoIP
markets are developing in China - the legal and the illegal.
According to the Chinese Ministry of Information, only traditional
telecom companies can provide VoIP services. However, PC-tolandline
services, such as the Skype Out service, have emerged in
China and already have over one million subscribers, according to
In-Stat.The forecasts below show that VoIP offered by telecom
companies will play second fiddle to virtual VoIP providers in China.
It will be interesting to see if Skype (operating as Tom Online in
China) escapes the ire of its telecom competitors or the relevant
regulators in the years ahead.
from Broadband Services: VoIP and IPTV (EM-2279)
Global Handset Trends
In the first half of 2006, Nokia and Motorola grew their global market shares by
concentrating on low cost handsets. This became a hot strategic issue for the Korean
vendors, such as Samsung and LG, which were trying to find ways how to correspond
to the low cost handset market and how to restructure the global channels in order to
compete with the Big Two. As a result of this, the polarization of vendors became even
more distinctive, having serious impacts on smaller vendors such as VK mobile in
Korea (bankrupt), Pantech&Curitel (walk out), and BenQ mobile (filed for insolvency).
In the second half of 2006, even though Samsung’s portfolio was enhanced with some
new models and LG’s strategic phones were doing well in the markets, the companies’
concern over low cost handsets and hunting for new distribution channels continued. It
seems that the ULCH market will continue to be a main issue in 2007 as well, backed
by Nokia 1101, MOTOFONE F3, and W220. It is predicted that the replacement
demand will outrun the new phone demand, but in the emerging markets, thanks to the
low cost handsets, new phone demand will be the leading trend. In addition, handset
OEM/ODM market in Taiwan is estimated to continue growing in high figures during
2007.
from Global Handset Trends 2006-2007 (RO-0011)
Mobile Advertising
Even though brands talk of using mobile to "extend" their Web
efforts, the reality is that there are some real technical differences
between what can and what cannot be attempted in a mobile
environment.Take handsets. Depending on what kind of
applications, screen resolution and operating system reside on a
handset, the marketer is constrained by the type of campaigns that
can be run. Almost every new handset on the market can handle
short messaging service (SMS), with many of them sporting color
screens that can handle wallpaper or screensavers. For more
sophisticated applications such as multimedia messaging service
(MMS), a mobile camera is required along with internal software.
Not surprisingly, the pool of potential marketing campaigns shrinks
as marketers field more complex marketing experiences such as
mobile search or games. For marketers, keeping track of handset
functionality and penetration is critical for designing experiences
that live well on the current state of handsets.
Handsets are only one kind of real estate for marketers to master.
Another involves how a customer makes contact with a brand -
typically through a common short code (CSC), a text message or a
mobile banner ad. For marketing purposes, CSCs are what
wireless subscribers send to access a variety of mobile content
and services. Similar to a Web site’s URL, a CSC can be promoted
to route end users to a common point of interaction.Any
company or brand can acquire or lease a CSC from a supplier -
the Common Short Code Administration (CSCA) in the US and
other country-specific groups in Europe and Asia. Short codes
come in two general flavors: random and vanity. Random CSCs
(eg, "48937") are numbers that a governing body such as the CSCA
assigns, whereas vanity CSCs (eg, "7827," or "STAR," for American
Idol) are targeted to specific brand goals.
from Mobile Marketing and Advertising (EM-2261)
Mobile Market Forecasts
The Japanese mobile industry is viewed as saturated and its
growth rate is falling year by year. However, it faces a turning
point as value -added services are being developed based on the
improvement of high- end networks, newcomers are entering the
market, and a new market for the business users is being created
by the mobile operators.
Currently, the Japanese mobile market is driven by several
factors. For example, since 2005, easy-to - use mobile handsets
with limited features have been released, targeted at seniors,
and in late 2005 and early 2006, handsets with designs and GPS
functions suited to children gained in popularity. Additionally, NTT
DoCoMo and au successfully appealed to new customer groups
while promoting family subscriptions, and handsets and tariff plans
tailored to business users were introduced in 2006.
from Japanese Mobile Market Forecast 2003-2010, First Half 2006 (RO-1713)
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