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To be able to work with micro-segmentation, it is necessary for handset manufacturers to have a comprehensive knowledge of the mobile market, putting totally new demands on handset manufacturers regarding market understanding, as handset manufacturers will need to have a far greater understanding of consumers’ needs and tastes than they have today.
Understanding the market is necessary if the handset manufacturers are to develop mobile handsets that suit the many different micro segments, as the handset market and handset manufacturers are moving away from developing mass-market mobile handsets to developing segmented handsets - from no customisation to mass customisation.
There will therefore be a far greater focus on the customer on the future mobile market, than there is today, where the mobile sector is generally more focused on technology than customers actual tastes and needs. The handset manufacturers will also need to focus more on the customers. Nike is one example who has developed a concept where customers are in focus and can via a web site design their own clothes shoes etc from Nike. This concept can be copied by the mobile industry, so a mobile provider could for example offer their customers to design their own mobile handsets.
Handset manufacturers will over the coming years launch an increasing number of handsets targeted at increasingly narrow segments and for the handset manufacturers the difference between success and fiasco will be whether they understand how to create mobile handsets that will match the segments the individual MNO, MVNO, SP, BR or sub-brand is targeting.
As handset manufacturers in the future will be launching an increasing number of mobile handsets targeted at an increasing number of narrow segments, they will need to be able to identify these different segments. The handset manufacturers will need to collect in-depth knowledge about segmentation to be able to develop mobile handsets that fit in with different segments needs. Without this knowledge, a handset manufacturer will only be able to develop mobile handsets targeted at the mass-market and will find it difficult offering a mobile handset to customers demanding unique/segmented mobile handsets to differentiate themselves.
There are examples of handset manufacturers developing mobile handsets targeted at a certain segment, but then it has been a completely different segment that has actually purchased and used these mobile handsets. An example of this is the now classic Nokia 6310 - a mobile handset designed for the corporate segment, but that also became incredibly popular among private customers. There are many other examples where private customers have more advanced mobile handsets than corporate customers and for the handset manufacturers it can also be difficult to spot the difference between a private and corporate customer. A corporate customer will often be interested in the same mobile handsets as the private - why shouldn’t a corporate customer that travels a lot be interested in a mobile handset that features a MP3 player?
The mobile world is also being influenced by the increasing level of individualism in society. The increase in individualism can mostly be seen in the mobile world by customers personalising their mobile handsets by e.g. purchasing new handset covers and downloading ring tones and logos. Through these downloads, customers achieve a small level of differentiation to other customers.
But the level of personalisation will grow and customers will increasingly differentiate themselves via their mobile handset and the available offerings that allow their handset to be different from friends, families and colleagues’ mobile handsets.
Handset manufacturers therefore need to be become better at identifying trends in current society, that are influencing society globally, regionally and nationally.
If the handset manufacturers can develop mobile handsets that follow trends in society, they will be in a very good position to increase customer loyalty in their products.
There have been a number of examples of handset manufacturers not spotting trends in society that had significant consequences for the handset manufacturers business and has damaged their market shares.
For example, for a long period of time, Nokia ignored the global success of the clamshell handsets that spread from Asia to the rest of the mobile world. Nokia were very late in realising that they had misinterpreted the market for clamshell phones and have since developed a number of clamshell handsets. Nokia's misinterpretation of the mobile market - or lack of ability to spot that trend, resulted in Nokia losing market shares to competitors that already had clamshell models in their product portfolio. Nokia has since fought to regain their lost market shares by amongst other things launching clamshell handsets and have been successful in their change of strategy, with increasing market shares as a result.
For more information about the terminal manufacturers and the challenges they face, we refer you to our strategic report – How to Succeed in the Second-Generation MVNO Market – in which the terminal manufacturers role in the mobile universe is analyzed. The report also analyses the terminal manufacturers challenges as well as possible changes in their business models.
Strand Consult is an independent, privately owned Consultancy Company, which has its primary focus on the mobile sector. Their clients include all of the Scandinavian mobile operators, 120 other operators world wide and numerous International companies in the media sector. Through their reports, workshops and consulting, they help create and increase mobile business revenue streams and maximise the use of all the new possibilities that arise with the new technologies. About Strand Consult
September 2008
Ethertronics Inc. announced the company has shipped more than 100 million of its Isolated Magnetic Dipole (IMD) antennas. This achievement validates the company´s ability to cater to device manufacturers´ increasing demand for functionality and high-quality performance.
"Establishing an installed base of more than 100 million highlights Ethertronics´ antennas´ superior performance capabilities and ease of integration," said Jeffrey Crosby, president and chief executive officer of Ethertronics. "As the industry-wide trend of developing smaller and more compact devices continues, Ethertronics is witnessing an increased demand for high-performance, quality embedded antennas to serve a variety of applications. The company is experiencing a high-growth phase and expects this phase to continue as manufacturers continue to see the advantages of our IMD antennas."
In March 2007, Ethertronics announced the company had reached the 50 million milestone for antennas shipped. Within the past year, Ethertronics has doubled its installed base to surpass the 100 million mark.
Ethertronics continues to gain global market share with its full line of custom and embedded, stamped-metal and ceramic antenna products, which enable manufacturers to easily incorporate the company´s antennas into feature-rich devices while continuing to shrink products´ overall size. The company´s patented IMD antenna technology delivers to the key needs of today´s wireless world by confining the current flow on the antenna, which optimizes isolation and delivers higher performance with minimal SAR emissions.
Ethertronics´ antennas have been designed into several global manufacturers´ handsets, including Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and Symbol, as well as an innovative GPS watch from Casio and Bluetooth modules for HP notebook computers.
Ethertronics designs and manufactures high-performance standard Savvi ceramic antennas and customized Prestta stamped-metal embedded antenna solutions for wideband and multi-band wireless devices. Ethertronics´ antennas incorporate its patented Isolated Magnetic Dipole(TM) (IMD) technology. The company has an installed base of nearly 100 million units, and a global network of design and manufacturing centers.
17-3-08
Ethertronics Inc., a leading provider of standard and customized embedded antenna solutions for wideband and multi-band wireless devices, has expanded its Savvi ceramic antenna product line with new high-performance embedded antennas.
These compact antennas are designed to address the challenge of incorporating multiple functions into portable devices, and include a compact Bluetooth antenna, wireless local area network (WLAN) antenna, WiMAX antenna and combination PCS/WiMAX antenna. Ethertronics´ antennas contain the company´s patented Isolated Magnetic Dipole(TM) (IMD) technology that makes them immune to frequency shifts because of their industry-leading high-isolation characteristics.
The smallest of the new antennas, the compact Bluetooth antenna measures a mere 5x3x1.3mm and is ideal for integration into small, handheld portable devices. The WLAN ceramic antenna operates at 2.4-2.5 and 4.9-5.8 GHz frequency bands and measures 7x4x1.3mm. This antenna is ideal for notebooks and RF modules and addresses the growing demand for WLAN functions in an array of electronics devices.
The third addition to the Savvi line is a WiMAX antenna that operates on either the 2.3, 2.5 or 3.5 GHz frequency bands and measures at 14x4x1.3mm. Focusing on the growing convergence trend, the ceramic WiMAX antenna is an ideal solution for multi-functioning handsets. The final addition to the line is a diversity PCS/WiMAX combination antenna that measures 9.6x3x1.3mm and operates on the 1.93-1.99 and 2.5-2.7 GHz frequency bands.
"With the great success and response to our initial launch of the Savvi ceramic antenna product line, we have broadened the product base to cover several more applications in the wireless industry that are gaining traction," said Jeffrey Crosby, president and chief executive officer of Ethertronics. "These antennas highlight Ethertronics´ ability to capitalize on the growing trend of mobile convergence by offering quality, high-performance antennas, which excel at delivering the best specifications for multi-functioning mobile devices."
Given Ethertronics antennas´ high-isolation characteristics, every antenna in the Savvi line has the ability to co-locate with the main antenna without experiencing frequency shift and RF interruption, which can ultimately hinder performance and reception. In addition, the IMD technology enables Ethertronics´ ceramic antennas to have equivalent performance specifications to that of metal antennas.
This past September, Ethertronics announced the initial launch of the Savvi Ceramic Antenna product line that included a Bluetooth-only and a novel GPS/Bluetooth combination antenna. All of these antennas are available now.
Ethertronics designs and manufactures high-performance embedded antenna solutions for wideband and multi-band wireless devices. Ethertronics´ leading-edge product lines, including Prestta(TM) stamped metal and Savvi(TM) ceramic antennas support a wide range of applications including cellular, UMTS, WiFi, WiMAX, Bluetooth, GPS, MediaFLO and DVB-H among others.
Source: Ethertronics (11-12-07)
Symbian Limited welcomes NTT DOCOMO's launch of the FOMA SH706i based on Symbian OS which starts shipping in Japan today. Symbian OS is the global market-leading open mobile operating system for mobile phones.
The FOMA SH706i, a "One-Segment" mobile TV slider handset which provides high definition images and high-quality sound, is manufactured by Sharp Corporation and includes the MOAP® platform which is compliant with the latest FOMA specifications.
Symbian continues to focus on delivering a flexible, robust and open mobile operating system which gives handset manufacturers and network operators the ability to develop differentiated phones, faster, more easily and at lower cost for different market segments and regions. Symbian customers that have shipped 3G phones in Japan based on Symbian OS include Fujitsu, Mitsubishi Electric, Motorola, Nokia, Sharp, and Sony Ericsson.
Manufactured by:
Symbian is a software licensing company that develops and licenses Symbian OS, the market-leading open operating system for mobile phones.
Symbian licenses Symbian OS to the world's leading handset manufacturers and has built close co-operative business relationships with leading companies across the mobile industry. During Q1 2008, 18.5 million Symbian mobile phones were sold worldwide to over 250 major network operators, bringing the total number of units shipped up to 31 March 2008 to 206 million.
Symbian has its headquarters in London, with offices in Cambridge, United Kingdom, China, India, Japan, Korea and United States.
11-7-08 • Further info: Statements of support for the Symbian Foundation • Symbian Foundation members profile • Symbian Foundation plans: open mobile software platform • Mobile industry endorsement for Symbian Foundation grows •
January ’08 - Interactive products
Zodiac Interactive launched a new mobile content search engine, Zodigo. Much like a Movies-On-Demand service from cable operators, Zodigo is navigated either by remote control or by keyboard and mouse and includes revolutionary features that make it easy for consumers to discover and download mobile content instantly to their mobile phones.
Zodigo is also the first and only software platform built for release on digital TV systems (cable, satellite, & telco), Blu-ray & HD-DVD players, all next-gen gaming consoles (Wii , Xbox 360 , and the Playstation® 3), as well as at Zodigo.com and many other Web distribution partners. Perhaps most importantly, Zodigo is an intelligent system that quickly and automatically learns about users' preferences, as well as their exact mobile phone type, and recommends only content that works for that phone.
Parks Associates' Director of Broadband & Gaming Michael Cai, comments "The breadth and depth of mobile content will increase significantly over the next few years, and the ability to easily discover and download this content from the TV and Web gives consumers a much better mobile phone shopping experience. Today, consumers typically turn to their mobile phone/operator for new content, but the phone deck features a poor merchandising environment for content discovery and purchase. We are pleased to see Zodiac leveraging its years of experience in developing interactive TV applications for some of the largest U.S. cable and satellite operators to make mobile content shopping an easy, on-demand service for consumers."
Matt Johnston, Zodiac's SVP of strategy and the CEO of the new Zodigo operating company, comments, "Consumers are beginning to experience an explosion in the breadth and diversity of content and applications available for the mobile phone, and, until today, have not had an adequate content discovery solution. Part of the problem is that content directories, for the most part, have only been available either on the mobile phone through existing mobile operators, through cluttered teen-targeted Web sites or directly from individual, fragmented publishers. Zodigo was developed with a better shopping experience in mind and the result is an easy-to-use search experience that helps create a truly long-tail of mobile content discovery."
Zodigo allows consumers to channel and Web surf to discover great content for their mobile phones. Whether it's games, applications, ringtones, movies, podcasts, coupons, mobile manga, tickets, alerts, or full songs, Zodigo helps consumers easily find and download interesting stuff recommended by like-minded people.
Johnston continued, "To be selected by Chris Shipley and the DEMO 08 conference team is a wonderful validation of our team's vision and hard work. DEMO remains the industry's premier launch pad for emerging technology and consumer-facing products and we couldn't be more pleased with the opportunity to launch and showcase the power of Zodigo at DEMO 08."
Produced by Network World Events and Executive Forums, the semi-annual DEMO conferences focus on emerging technologies and new products, which are hand-selected from across the spectrum of the technology marketplace. The DEMO conferences have earned their reputation for consistently identifying tomorrow's cutting-edge technologies, and have served as launch pad events for companies such as Palm, E*Trade, Handspring, and U.S. Robotics, helping them to secure venture funding, establish critical business relationships, and influence early adopters. Each DEMO conference features approximately 70 new companies, products and technologies.
Zodiac Interactive, the Interactive TV 2.0 Company˙, is a multiple Emmy-nominated and Emmy award-winning developer of software for interactive television. The company also runs one of the world's premier studios for interactive television games.
28-1-08
Cantabria infinita
Cueva de El Soplao • Año Santo Lebaniego • Turismo y gastronomía
Propuestas en Brasil
Cabo Frío: paraíso a 200 km de Río • Niterói: playas, arquitectura y agenda cultural • El camino de Niemeyer: recorrido arquitectónico
Propuestas en Argentina
Ruta Nacional 40: Recorrido de la parte Norte • Recorrido del Centro (Cuyo) • Recorrido de la parte Sur (Patagonia)
Propuestas de turismo
en la Comunidad Valenciana
Ibi, Onil, Foia de Castalla • Belén de Tirisiti - Patrimonio cultural en Alcoi • Los Baños del Almirante (Valencia del s.XIV) • Mundo Naval en el museo Príncipe Felipe • Arte rupestre valenciano (Museo de la Valltorta)
Transporte aéreo
Air Nostrum • Ryanair • Spanair • Vueling
