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By Cathal O’Toole
Head of Mobile Advertising, Jinny Software
The Latin American Region is one full of potential in terms of mobile subscriber growth and new services, but while overall regional growth in mobile users is up and several markets are nearing or have surpassed 100% penetration, several mobile operators have seen market shares drop in regions where there is a real fight to gain the upper hand. This is where new services, such as innovative mobile advertising and marketing, can make a difference and help generate new revenues.
By end 2009(*) mobile connections in the Latin American Region had exceeded 500 million, with an average 86% market penetration. Approximately one third of mobile connections in South America are accounted for by Brasil(*), which had more than 176 million connections by the end of last year. The second, third and fourth largest regional markets are Mexico, Argentina and Colombia and, together with Brasil, these four most affluent markets have now reached levels of mobile maturity where MNOs need to look for new ways of revenue generation beyond core voice and data services. This has resulted in high intensity competition in mobile advertising and marketing, being centred on these top-spend markets.
In these richer markets, high penetrations of smart 3G devices and higher levels of network and user sophistication see MNOs successful in offering advertising on mobile web browsing and on device applications, with targeting based on user behavior profiles. In lower income markets such as Peru and Chile, MNOs still have opportunities to drive additional revenues from mobile marketing and advertising on simpler traffic types, such as SMS and USSD. Indeed, these advertising channels are common to both high and low-income markets.
Two(**) main operator groups - America Móvil (operating under the Claro brand in most countries) and Telefónica (operating under the Movistar brand in most countries) - exert significant influence on what is adopted in terms of mobile services, such as advertising, in the markets of their regional subsidiaries.
Telefonica’s decision to launch a single global platform to deploy mobile advertising across its networks in Europe and Latin America is certain to push operators across the region to respond with their own advertising services. The first deployments were in the UK, Spain, Mexico and Colombia and then the advertising platform was rolled out across the rest of Telefonica's regional operators by the end of 2009.
The platform used gives individual operators complete control of the solution, providing them with access to such things as customer data, behavioral profiles, and an opt-in database. An advertising server instructs appropriate marketing to be delivered depending on the right user profile, the right mobile device and, of course, the right choice of advertisements.
With regard to this group roll-out, Chief Operating Officer of Telefonica, Julio Linares, was quoted in the media as saying that, “The key to successful mobile advertising is doing it in a contextual and non-intrusive way, which our global opt-in ad-serving solution enables us to do.” He added his belief that the operator was “accelerating the uptake of mobile advertising in all Telefonica mobile businesses across Europe and Latin America” with resulting mobile advertising revenue-generating possibilities surpassing the mobile Internet and WAP.
In another example of the mobile channel being used by a major Latin American operator, TIM Brasil, with more than 36 million customers, recently ran the largest mobile super promotion ever launched in the country aimed at strengthening its market presence, increasing its brand awareness and increasing ARPU. Lasting 101 days, the campaign, called ‘101 Carros TIM’, used TV, radio, print media and below-the-line promotional vehicles including, in the mobile domain, USSD.
By sending an SMS to an advertised shortcode, users were given an exclusive campaign ringtone and entered for one of several major daily prize draws where prizes included a car. Millions of customers took part with each SMS costing R$ 1.99+ tax. Apart from the obvious returns from the SMSs, huge numbers of new customers were acquired and TIM Brasil positioned itself as the leading mobile marketing innovator in the country.
According to recent data from the Mobile Marketing Association, 65% of consumers in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina have shown a moderate to high likelihood of adopting mobile marketing initiatives, with 30% appearing very likely to agree to participate in mobile marketing campaigns in the future. Mobile advertising is certainly a major way forward for regional operators looking to expand their ARPUs and beat off the competition.
Such statistics give confidence to mobile advertising solution vendors such as Jinny Software, with its already established customer base across the region of 14 customers for its comprehensive messaging and VAS platform portfolio. The company has had an established presence in Central and Latin America for over three years and today serves the region with large engineering and operations offices in Panama and Brasil.
With customers in Brasil, Peru, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and five countries in the Caribbean, the company has developed a wealth of local expertise in delivering carrier-class solutions. In the field of mobile advertising, Jinny has established a strong digital media sales and service delivery team specifically to sell its mobile advertising service to agencies, brands and MNOs across the region. • May 2010
(*) GSMA’s Wireless Intelligence
(**) Millicom, with its Tigo brand, is some way behind the level of influence of the two leaders
SIMagine, the worldwide developers contest for SIM-based mobile applications with €150,000 worth of prizes has selected the 10 Nominees for the final awards. The organizer SIMalliance, the partners Team Côte d'Azur, Samsung and Oracle | Sun and the sponsors Orange, Telefonica and Telecom Italia, are proud to invite them to showcase their projects at Mobile World Congress, Barcelona.
Promoting the development and deployment of innovative (U)SIM-based mobile applications and start-up projects, and organized by SIMalliance, the global reference organization for the SIM Industry, the worldwide contest SIMagine announces the ten teams selected for the final round of the competition. For this 2010 edition, out of 103 competing projects coming from 35 countries, the Nominees are (alphabetical order of the project name):
Mobile Telecom Applications category: Islamic SIMCard by SES Ltd (Greece); mKratos by Telkom Centre of Excellence (South Africa); PARKEUR by Polytech'Marseille (France); PARME by Polytech'Nice-Sophia (France); PhoobyBook by FreeAccess (Italy); SpaceAds by Micro Circle (M) Sdn Bhd (Malaysia)
Start-up Projects category: Bipper by Bipper Communication AS (Norway); Linkedia by Linkedia (China); Radio touch by Alberto Gasparini (Italy); Smart Stamp by Smart Stamp (United States)
Organized by SIMalliance, SIMagine ensures the Nominees of the recognition of the whole industry. In sight, the final round which will reward the 6 best teams in April during the SIMposium event in Rome. Sponsored by Team Côte d'Azur, the economic development agency of the Sophia Antipolis-Côte d'Azur region, Samsung, Oracle | Sun Microsystems, Orange, Telefonica and Telecom Italia, the contest will offer €150,000 worth of prizes this year, including a whole range of support & coaching services. Sophia Antipolis, Europe’s leading mobile telecom cluster, brings together all the ingredients required for successful project winners, offering:
For this 2010 edition, 103 projects coming from 35 countries have been submitted; only 10 have been selected for the final that will reward the 6 best teams (April 20th at SIMposium 2010) in Rome. • 16-2-10
SIMagine is the annual worldwide mobile innovation contest stimulating innovation around SIM-based services for the wireless future.
Launched in 2000, SIMagine brings together the talents of students, developers, and young professionals around the world to find creative applications for tomorrow’s mobile services. Since 2000, over 1700 candidates from all five continents have been participating.
This SIMagine 11th edition sees two main evolutions. SIMalliance, the global reference organization for the SIM Industry, has taken over the organization of SIMagine. Previously organized by a single SIM vendor, it has now become an Industry- supported event. Second, a new start-up category has been included in the contest in order to reward the most innovative mobile business projects and to help young entrepreneurs in the development of their company.
Team Côte d'Azur, as part of its strategy of developing the Mobile Telecoms sector in the Côte d'Azur, with its partners Eurécom ParisTech, SKEMA Business School, VENTECH and the law firm Kahn & Associates, will give the winners a complete 24 month-incubation period in Sophia Antipolis, the most favorable environment in Europe to turn a project into a business success story.
Altobridge has established a presence in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, to meet the increasing demand for telecommunications in the region. Building on its existing Asia Pacific team in Malaysia, the Jakarta representation aims to address both the communications needs of Indonesia’s rural population and the many remote enterprises operating across the country. Altobridge Country Manager, Mark O’Sullivan, will head up the Indonesian team to provide comprehensive sales and service support to mobile network operators (MNOs) in the region.
Indonesia has an overall population of over 242 million distributed over 17,500 islands. Of these, approximately 72 million are adults, most of whom live in rural areas and are without any basic communication services. It is these potential customers in communities with populations as low as 100 who can now be served profitably by MNOs using the Altobridge Remote Community solution. This solution uses intelligent patented technology, which reduces transmission and power requirements, making it the most cost-effective and power-efficient system available on the market for remote communities. Apart from low capital and operational costs, an important differentiating factor of this solution is its compact size and portability, enabling set up of a site within a couple of days in the most geographically challenging areas. Altobridge also offers MNOs a Fully Managed Service, removing the burden of initial capital and resource costs and providing 24/7 support, maintenance and network management services.
This latest strengthening of its presence in the Asia-Pacific region follows the announcement, earlier this month, of Altobridge’s three-year contract win with Tonga Communications Corporation, underpinning the company’s understanding and capabilities in dealing with large numbers of remote island communities.
Mike Fitzgerald, CEO of Altobridge, said, “There are thousands of small enterprises and market villages across Indonesia which could immediately benefit from the impact of mobile communications.
We have the ideal combination of technology and experience across the region, particularly in South East Asia and the South Pacific. The Altobridge Remote Community solution generates incremental revenue for the mobile operator from these remote subscriber groups, and Indonesia is a very important growth market for such mobile communications.”
At a reception on Wednesday 26th May in the Shangri-La hotel, Jakarta, the Irish Ambassador to Indonesia, His Excellency Dr. Richard A. O’Brien launched the Ireland-Indonesia Business Network. Earlier today at a Business Media Lunch the Ambassador briefed the Indonesian press on developments in the Ireland-Indonesia bilateral relationship and announced Altobridge’s new Indonesian presence. The lunch was also attended by the Altobridge Country Manager for Indonesia, Mark O’Sullivan. • 27-5-10
The Remote Community solution
Part of what differentiates the Altobridge technology from other solutions is its ability to intelligently manage and restrict the use of expensive transmission bandwidth by combining two of its patented technology platforms. First is the Altobridge Split Architecture™, which ensures an ‘on-demand’ use of the satellite link when only revenue-generating traffic is occurring, and uses the lowest level of bandwidth in the industry at 5-8kbps per call. This system not only cuts transmission costs, it also cuts power consumption, which is further reduced with a ‘night mode’.
The second is the Altobridge Local Connectivity™ Platform, which enables the intelligent switching of all local calls locally at the base station or handover between base station clusters. This eliminates unnecessary transmission costs, double satellite hops and improves network quality thereby encouraging longer call holding times resulting in increased call revenues. As up to 70% of calls can be local, significant opportunities exist to reduce transmission costs in all areas of the network. The Local Connectivity Platform has been licensed to world-leading infrastructure providers.
The benefits of these two technologies combined in the Remote Community Solution, including a Fully Managed Service offering and VSAT bundling are, in part, what makes this the most cost-effective solution for rural communities on the market.
One of the strengths of the Altobridge Remote Community solution is that it has one of the lowest power consumption figures on the market. Intelligent power optimisation is crucial to reducing power consumption. For solar installations, the solution has an intelligent ‘Night Mode’ reducing power use at night during low traffic periods. The intelligent control of the BTS can be used to vary services and coverage at night, or during periods of low power availability. Further power savings are achieved through intelligent management of the power amplifier.
Headquartered at Kerry Technology Park, Ireland, with further R&D, service and sales offices in San Jose (USA), Shenzhen (China), and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Altobridge is a leading provider of telecommunications solutions that cut the cost of communications to, from and between wireless devices. Altobridge sells wireless network solutions and can provide Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), Government Organisations & NGOs with a Fully Managed Service, working hand-in-hand with local, in-country service partners. At the heart of the company’s offering lie the patented and patent-pending technologies: Local ConnectivityTM, Split ArchitectureTM and Data at the Edge™, which drive down backhaul costs, reduce power consumption and offer MNOs new incremental revenue from the broad, untapped, global remote community subscriber base.
Following the strategic acquisition of the ADC Mobile Network Solutions business in December 2009, Altobridge can now offer customers a broader portfolio of products and services. Altobridge’s wireless network solutions are deployed and operational in more than 20 countries across the globe.
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