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COMMUNICATIONS DIARY: Operators in fresh effort to promote mobile surfing

Financial Times' Digital Business Supplement By Ian Limbach

Operators have struggled to make web browsing on a cellphone relevant to the customer ever since the mobile internet emerged in 2000. Content has been enriched and bandwidth and screen size have increased. But seven years later, mobile portals still fail to encourage mass market usage on a daily basis. Unreliability of the mobile data network, unresponsiveness while browsing, the need for multiple clicks, and concern over connection costs all keep mobile internet a niche application. SurfKitchen, a UK-based company, thinks one solution is to move the mobile portal off the internet and on to the mobile phone. This eliminates network latency and encourages users to try the service, since all they need to do is click on a pre-installed link on their phone. Additional content can be fetched off the internet as needed. About a year ago, Orange began pre-installing content catalogues on some of its signature devices in the UK and France. Since then, it reports that average revenue per user from data has doubled among existing mobile internet users while repeat purchases from Orange’s content portal are also up 30 per cent. Orange’s main goal was to encourage non-users to start browsing the mobile internet, and they focused on less expensive phones since these tended to be the ones owned by content- hungry youth customers. Ringtones and wallpapers are the main fare. Operators in the Middle East face a different challenge. Customers there want high-end devices and will switch to competing carriers easily. Companies such as Etisalat, Batelco and Aljawal are installing portals on top-end smartphones to provide information services such as news and weather as well as device customisations. Others are targeting specific segments. Telefónica Moviles, for instance, recently introduced an on-device portal focused on mobile gamers. One of the most interesting applications comes from Malaysia, where mobile operator Maxis created a portal focused on last summer’s football World Cup. Although available for just 12 weeks, Maxis says it was one of the most successful services it has launched. So far, SurfKitchen remains focused on selling its on-device portal technology to operators, but it’s easy to imagine content providers wanting to own the same phone real estate. And Nokia and Sony-Ericsson are apparently interested in branding their own on-device portals. On-device portals could also offer a fast and secure way to manage mobile commerce, since payment information is stored safely on the device. Vintage idea Another way to make mobile applications attractive is to keep them simple and singularly focused. This is what Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona, one of Tuscany’s top wine producers, has done for buyers of its best Brunello di Montalcino, said to be one of the most counterfeited wines in the world. Each bottle has a unique code printed on its neck. Consumers and distributors can then use a mobile phone to verify the authenticity of the wine by sending the code via SMS or calling an interactive voice service. The application was created by Certilogo, an Italian start-up. Besides protecting products and reputation, Ciacci Piccolomini sees the application as a way to communicate directly with the consumer. It’s simple but useful when you’re paying $60 or more for a bottle. Flirting with MVNOs Italy might produce some interesting mobile services, but it often lags in terms of value for money. Operators there recently agreed to stop charging a top-up commission that ranged from 5 to 40 per cent of the top-up’s value. Italian consumers will save nearly €2bn a year, according to consumer groups. And now the country is having its first flirt with mobile virtual network operators, something most European markets introduced years ago. The first MVNO deals were announced late last month by Coop and Carrefour, the supermarket chains. They will focus on cheap, no-frills telephony. But in a nation where mobile phone penetration is already 150 per cent, it’s hard to imagine how big the impact can be. Perhaps more promising is the plan of Poste Italiane, the national postal service, which wants to turn the phone into a mobile wallet. Poste Italiane is already one of the country’s largest retail banks, with 5m accounts and 9m payment cards issued. Its goal is to win over 5m customers in two years. In a country where many bills and public services must still be paid in Italy’s slow and unprofessional post offices, the thought of skipping the queue might win over the whole country.

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