By Arthur Leggett
Let’s take an imaginary trip to the mobile-centric future. This journey begins on Woodward Avenue, in Detroit City, Michigan. As we casually stroll by neighborhood stores, restaurants, and dry cleaners in “The Creative Corridor,” your mobile phone receives text alerts on grocery sales, a special on Gai Med Ma Muang, and that your laundry is ready for pick up. We go into three family-owned businesses and you pay for the groceries, the take-out, and the freshly pressed suits & shirts by pointing your mobile phone at a pay terminal.
Welcome to the Mobile Age: Communications, Anytime, Connections, Anywhere, and Commerce, Mobiled.
The mobile phone, more properly called the mobile device, has become the most ubiquitous communications tool in the world. As of January 2008, around 3 billion mobile subscribers, now known as mobileers, can do some chin-wagging around the world. For perspective sake, that’s twice the number of mobile phone users as landline phone users, more than double the number of internet browsers, and nearly twice the number of television sets.
During a typical month, mobile phone users exchange over 350 billion text messages, in which 95% is opened. In comparison, over 3 trillion emails are exchanged in an average month, but only 15% is opened. The remaining 85% of emails is perceived as intrusive spam and remain unopened.
Today’s mobile device, which operates more akin to a mini-computer than a first generation, analog, mobile phone, is multi-functional. For instance, common functions and features on a mobile device includes: Operating system; Cameras; Voice calls; Voice mails; Caller ID; Emails; Instant Messaging (IM); Presence Features; Short message service (SMS), often called text messaging; Multimedia messaging service (MMS), which includes texting, images, audio, video; Navigation; Internet search; Contacts storage; Music Storage; Bluetooth; Games; Ring-tones; Global positioning standard (GPS); and, Interactive voice response systems (IVR). In the past ten to fifteen years, the mobile device has morphed into the most integrated consumer device in history. Surprisingly, most mobile device owners have no clue how to use many of their mobile devices' features and functions.
By 2010, 90% of the world will have mobile coverage. Today, mobile coverage extends to around 80% of the world’s population. Mobile market penetration rates vary from nation to nation. For example, Luxembourg has the highest mobile penetration rate in the world at 164%. That’s around 1.6 mobile devices per citizen.
In the UK, there are also more mobile devices than people. In America, over 50% of kids are mobileers. In China, there are about 500 million mobile users. In India, there are about 200 million mobile subscribers. However, the region to watch is Africa. Africa is experiencing the fastest growth of mobile penetration, twice the rate of Asia.
Without getting too deep into the technical complexities that are driving mobile telephony, the key driver is 3G. As bandwidth increased to 3G, the speed of rich data transmission dramatically increased. Thus, it became easier for mobile subscribers to use data-heavy features such as pictures, videos, music downloads, games, GPS, and so on.
As mobile data transfer speeds continue to explode, some in the press suggest that 3.5G and 4G will take data transmission to WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access.) Put simply, this evolution will allow mobileers to view higher quality streaming video, on demand movies, and television anytime, anywhere, and anyplace on thier devices. This concept is called Mobile TV. In the near future, Mobile TV will become a standard feature on mobile devices.
I believe that the mobile device will become the center point of consumer connections because the device is more personal and prevalent than any other electronic device in history. Given the facts that:
• Most mobileers answer their own phones.
• Every mobile device is uniquely addressable.
• Mobile subscribers never leave home without devices.
• Mobileers are never far away from their mobile devices.
• Marketers can now send vicinity marketing messages.
Consumers will become more susceptible to impulse buying as highly personal and targeted mobile marketing messages, based on aggregated consumer data and specific GPS location technology, will be specifically tailored to a mobileer’s behavior, needs, wants, interests, proclivities, and aspirations.
In what is called the mobile-commerce future or the m-commerce future, the mobile device will act as a mobile wallet. M-commerce is already happening in Japan, China, and South Korea, where the mobile wallet handles basic payment transactions. A payment chip is embedded in the mobileer’s device. This payment chip connects through personal area networks (PANs) for m-commerce transactions, which are directly linked to the mobileer’s financial account, credit card, or prepaid credit card.
As more Americans embrace the convenience and reduced need to carry cash in the mobile future, the numbers of Americans pointing their mobile devices at pay terminal machines in grocery stores, Thai restaurants, and dry cleaners will mushroom.
Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.
Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.
If you want to learn more about the mobile revolution, I found the highlighted articles useful. Also, Jan Chipchase's presentation On Our Mobile Phones is very insightful. Thank you very much for sharing my writings.
Posts
