The IT Nerd

New findings from Juniper Research has revealed that a new Ultra-Low cost generation of smartphones is emerging, capturing large volumes of the emerging markets. Juniper forecasts almost 200 million in shipments by 2018, compared to nearly 10 million in 2014. On a global scale, this means that the Ultra-Premium end of the smartphone market is set to diminish proportionally by volume over time, not due to a drop in sales but a faster level of growth at other price points.

The report, Smartphone Futures: Differentiation Strategies & Emerging Opportunities, 2013-2018, argues that this new generation of devices will permanently change the market, splitting the global market in two, with the developed high margin low volume markets on one side and low margin high volume markets on the other. The Ultra-Premium smartphone market is currently dominated by Apple and Samsung with contenders such as HTC struggling to find a consistent foothold. However, due to fierce competition in the middle part of the smartphone market, this could be about to change as these players will begin to face competition from emerging markets as players such as Xiaomi and Oppo search for higher margins. These new players are utilising different tactics, Xiaomi are taking a holistic approach to the consumer and planning to offer additional services to the user thus subsidising their high performance devices.

Juniper feels that this extra competition in the Ultra-Premium end of the market is a boon to the consumer, the more competition a market has the faster the rate of innovation. Even the established players themselves may benefit as a faster rate of innovation will shake off the perception that this segment of the market is stagnating in terms of truly innovative technologies.

I would take a look at this report to see where smartphones are going in the future.

Like it or not, adult content is a major player on the web. Thus this report from Juniper Research is timely. It has found that by 2017, a quarter of a billion people will use their mobile or tablet device to access adult content, such as videos, images and live cams, up by more than 30% on current usage. The report highlighted that this was attributable to an emphasis on high-definition, niche-centric product, as well as the flourishing availability of mobile-optimised free content. According to the report – Mobile Adult Content: Monetisation, Technologies & Legislation 2013 – 2018 – smartphones and tablets have become key distribution channels for adult service providers, with those at the forefront of the industry ensuring that content is differentiated for and tailored to the increasingly mobile audience.

A new report from Juniper says that nearly 400mn mobile phone users worldwide are expected to use their handsets for mobile money transfer by 2018, up from just under 150mn this year, according to a new report from Juniper Research. Growth is expected to be driven primarily by deployments of domestic money transfer services, with multinational network operators increasingly launching products on a group-wide rather than an ad hoc basis.

The report – Mobile Money Transfer & Remittances: Domestic & International Markets 2013-2018 – stressed the need for service providers to ensure that support infrastructure, including an extensive agent network, needed to be in place well in advance of commercial launch. It argued that the agent: subscriber ratio should be no greater than 1:500 to ensure a high proportion of active users, with strong agent concentrations at the outset in key urban areas within developing markets. It also identified the key criteria for what it termed “Mobile Money Incubators”, assessing the optimal conditions to nurture mobile money service deployment and development, and highlighting markets which fulfilled these criteria.

However, the report cautioned against the imposition of taxes on mobile money services, such as those recently introduced in Kenya and Uganda. Report author Dr Windsor Holden had this to say:

“While the impact on the Kenyan market appears to have been limited thus far, we should point out that this is the most mature mobile money market. The introduction of a similar tax in a market in the early stages of service adoption could serve as a severe brake on growth or make potential service providers reconsider planned deployments.”

Other findings from the report include:

·  Airtime top-up is now viewed as the primary mobile international remittance opportunity

·  Money transfer platforms are becoming increasingly modular and flexible to enable integrat

Take a look at this report to see how mobile phones will transform money transfers.

Juniper’s latest report has revealed that hardware and service revenues from app-enabled smart wireless accessories will exceed $23 billion in 2018, compared to $2 billion this year. The key areas driving this growth will be fitness, health, Consumer Electronics (CE), payments and enterprise devices.

This revenue growth will be propelled by four key elements:

• An increase in the adoption of the ‘software as a service’ proposition.
• The development of additional services delivered within the app.
• The emergence of a ‘freemium’ model in fitness and healthcare wearables.
• The rise of payment transaction revenues.

The report, ‘Smart Wireless Accessories: CE, Fitness, Health, Payments & Enterprise 2013-2018’ found that several business models exist within the smart wireless accessories market, defined to some extent by the segments to which they belong. The development of a robust environment for the creation of peripheral based business models will affect how revenue is generated within the market along with technology standards and regulations playing their part, especially with regard to payments and healthcare accessories.

Author Nitin Bhas added the following:

“The wireless accessory ecosystem is still developing and will evolve over the next five years to become a reality for a much broader audience”.

Other Key Findings Include:

• Smart wireless accessory shipments forecast to approach 170 million by 2018.
• A multi-channel strategy is essential to gain traction in the race to secure a place in this new market.

Take a look at this report and see where this category is going in the next few years. It’s a very interesting read.

The continued deployment of analytics platforms is expected to deliver combined savings and incremental revenues to MNOs (Mobile Network Operators) totaling more than $9 billion by 2018, a new report from Juniper Research has found. Greatest savings are expected to result from reduced customer churn and more efficient capex allocation, with MNOs also able to derive significant revenues through the licensing of opted-in subscriber data to third parties. According to the report – Mobile Analytics & Big Data: Strategies for MNOs, Brands and OTTs 2013-2018 – the introduction of an analytics platform is of critical importance to players across the mobile value chain as a means of gaining insight into customer behaviour and matching investment with the most profitable customer segments.

It found that while many network operators were seeking to partner with third party analytics platform providers in a bid to monetise and manage the “Big Data” deluge, alternative strategies were emerging. Some operators – such as Telefonica and Verizon – have established in-house business units to offer aggregated subscriber data to enterprise customers, while in the UK, Everything Everywhere, Telefonica O2 and Vodafone have  founded the advertising joint venture Weve. Meanwhile, the report highlighted a sharp increase in analytics platform investment amongst OTT providers, citing Facebook’s purchase of the Atlas platform from Microsoft to enable the provision of highly targeted advertising as a key development in this regard.

There was a warning from report author Keith Breed:

“It is imperative for players to ensure that they – and their partners – have a robust policy in place for customer data usage, so that data can be aggregated and analysed without compromising subscriber privacy.”

Good advice to heed.

This is a very interesting report from Juniper that’s worth taking the time to read.

You’ve likely heard of so called ‘smart watches’ which are with functionality enhanced beyond timekeeping, often with features comparable to a PDA. Juniper’s latest report looks at this emerging technology in detail. Their latest report, ‘Next Generation Smart Watches: Market Prospects 2013-2018’ argues that the entrance of Apple and Samsung into this sector – as suggested by recent trademarks and patents – will help to validate the category and act as a catalyst for other competitors to enter the space. The net result is that app-enabled smart watch shipments will reach 36 million per annum by 2018, compared to just over 1 million this year.

Here’s what report author Nitin Bhas had to say about the report:

“By educating and publicising this device segment to the consumer, Apple and Samsung will indeed act as a catalyst to the market. In addition, being a key influencer, these player’s entry into the smart watch segment will benefit existing smart watch players – providing an increase in awareness and adoption of other wearable devices”.

Key points in the report include:

• Significant opportunities will arise for app developers – across the health, fitness, sports and communications segments.
• App-enabled mobile wireless accessory shipments to approach 170 million by 2018

Needless to say, this is going to be a big market going forward. The report is a very interesting read and worth your time to look at.

Juniper Research, has revealed that the Smartphone OS market will see new emerging players, such as Asha, Sailfish and emerging HTML 5 based OS players begin to gain ground in niche areas.

Juniper’s latest report, ‘Smartphone Futures: Differentiation Strategies & Emerging Opportunities 2013-2018’ forecasts sustained growth for Apple in the emerging markets over the forecast period, with Apple expected to announce a diversification in its product portfolio shortly. Apple and Samsung will continue to dominate the global market, shipping 17% more smartphones in 2018 than were shipped globally by all vendors in 2012. The new Juniper report found that Apple and Samsung’s global smartphone shipments will hit nearly 800 million by the end of 2018, compared with 677 million last year. Significant growth is expected across emerging markets such as the Indian Subcontinent and China. These areas will see particular growth in the Ultra-Economy and Economy sectors, with heavily localised handsets. Slower growth is forecast for the Ultra-Premium and Premium smartphone sectors, but only if they can offer clear differentiation within a crowded market.

Take a look at the report as it’s very interesting.

Juniper Research’s latest report on Future App Stores has determined that in 2017, over $75 billion will be spent on consumer apps. This will be largely as a result of the in-app purchase model gaining continued traction across many markets, and the impact of new monetisation models used by developers and storefronts.

Titled Future App Stores: Discovery, Monetisation & Ecosystem Analysis 2013 – 2018, explores how the growing app ecosystem will be strengthened as storefronts such as Microsoft and Amazon attempt to advance against the effective duopoly which Apple and Google presently have. Report author Siân Rowlands also pointed out this:

“it is not only developers who are seeking to capitalise on their user base; many app stores are also implementing carrier billing to ensure that unbanked consumers are able to pay for apps, which will contribute to the strong growth in app downloads”

Other Key Findings from the Report Include:

• The amount of revenue spent by tablet owners will increase substantially, from $7.8 billion this year to $26.6 billion in 2017.
• The most popular category of app, games, will also see the greatest share of consumer spend, taking 32% of the total revenues in 2017.

Take a look at this report to see how profitable apps will be in the future.

Smartphone sales statistics are out for Q2 2013. Juniper has crunched the numbers and here’s what they found. Smartphone shipments reached 230 million in Q2 2013, representing a year over year growth of almost 50% from Q2 2012 and quarter over quarter growth of nearly 13%. Samsung increased its smartphone market share by shipping an estimated 72 million smartphones and accounting for approximately 31% of all smartphone shipments in the quarter.

Likewise, Apple boasted iPhone sales showing strong year over year growth – up by 20% to more than 31 million – but saw year over year profits fall for the second successive quarter. Apple was also the only leading vendor to experience a quarter over quarter decline in smartphone sales, down 17% from the previous quarter: as a result its share of smartphones slipped from 18% in Q1 2013 to 14% in Q2.

LG posted its highest ever smartphones sales quarter, shipping 12 million in Q2 2013, representing a year over year growth of an impressive 114% from Q2 2012. Meanwhile, Chinese demand for low and mid end smartphones led to increased sales for vendors including Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo, with each exceeding an estimated 10 million shipments in Q2 2013.

Nokia shipped 11.7 million smartphones in the fourth quarter and posted Lumia sales of 7.4 million compared to 5.6 million in the previous quarter. The company also shipped 4.3 million Asha smartphones in the second quarter.

BlackBerry’s recent results – which run to a different financial schedule – are expected to see them ship around 6.9 million smartphones in Q2 2013. The Canadian company is believed to have sold nearly 2.8 million BlackBerry 10 devices over the past three months.

With Apple expected to come out with a new iPhone in September, the smartphone marketplace should radically change. We’ll see sometime in October if that’s true.

According to Juniper Research has found that more than 16bn transport and events tickets will be delivered annually to mobile handsets by 201, three times the volume expected this year. While adoption will be strong across a range of markets, volume growth will be driven by metro and bus deployments, most notably in the relatively untapped US market.

The report titled Mobile Ticketing Strategies: Air, Rail, Metro, Sports & Entertainment 2013-2018 noted that SMS-based solutions had achieved particularly strong adoption across markets such as Sweden, where mobile now accounts for 65% of bus ticketing sales. However, it argued that app-based alternatives delivering 2D barcodes were expected to gain greater traction elsewhere as smartphone adoption increased and would account for the majority of sales within the forecast period in developed markets.

Furthermore, the report highlighted that a number of companies across the transport and event ticketing sectors had recognised that mobile delivery offered the opportunity to add value to the ticketing process. It argued that integration of mobile ticketing platforms with loyalty programmes was key to customer retention, offered a means of upselling additional services and cross-promotional opportunities. The author of the report, Dr Windsor Holden said the following:

“The airline industry in particular has led the way in utilising mobile as a sales and loyalty channel. More than half of airlines are planning major investments in mobile over the next three years, employing mobile as a means of enhance customer self-service options throughout the end-to-end passenger travel process.”

Other findings from the report include:

• Transport operators should consider issuing smartphones to staff for mTicket validation
• The short-term opportunities for NFC ticketing are limited with a lack of implementation standards a key barrier to interoperability

If you want to see the future of mobile ticketing, you should take a look at this report.