A few observations from meetings, exhibition and atmosphere at the 2010 Mobile World Congress.
- Similar themes and challenges to 2009 – where is the money going to come from and who is it going to go to?
- Appstores, appstores and more appstores.
- Not at all clear how operators in mature mobile markets are going to grow revenues in future.
- Big difference in challenges faced by operators in mature vs less developed mobile markets.
- A congress in transition –big players participating (or not) more on their own terms.
- Common recognition of network capacity issues, plus an increasingly frantic search for cost reduction options – WiFi now reinvented as a low-cost offload; femtocells similarly positioning themselves as unit cost reducer. Being an integrated fixed & mobile operator therefore becomes a cost advantage
- Network spending continues to be slow; mobile operators looking to get more from existing assets and less capex. Possibly some signs of easing since Q4/09.
- 24 operators launched the Wholesale Application Community (WAC) “...to create an ecosystem for the development and distribution of mobile and internet applications irrespective of device or technology”. Trying to build on the OneAPI initiative.
- Not much LTE vs WiMax argument any more. Differences of view on speed of rollout of LTE in Europe. Early LTE deployments in Mid-East and parts of Asia-Pac.
- Operators caught between several rocks (capacity limits, new forms of competition, commoditisation, technology change, regulation of wholesale prices) and a hard place (tariffs with large, effectively “all-you-can-eat” data bundles)
- Continued growth of Chinese vendors, now with good track records of delivery, not just price-based contract wins
- Continued revision of vendors’ visibility in the main Halls (very small direct presence from Cisco, IBM, none from HP). More use of surrounding hotels and pavilions.
- Surreal sight of a stand in the infrastructure Hall being taken up by Golla designer bags and phone holders. Maybe someone misunderstood “carriers”, or maybe a belated tribute to Alexander McQueen?
- No real excitement on devices. All the action around showing off applications and appstores.
- Latest attempt by Microsoft to be a significant player. Announcement of Windows Phone 7 Series. Not much interest from rest of mobile value chain. More bark by Ballmer than bytes likely to be attracted to the platform.
- There’s a danger that Phone 7 Series will be neither fish (very open and developer-friendly) nor fowl (closed and proprietary and more profit-friendly)
- RIM the biggest visible presence (mainly populated by developers) of all the device manufacturers.
- Samsung launching its own appstore (Bada) – maybe concentrating on AsiaPac developers and market? Also a whole host of alphabet-soup phone ranges and product platforms (eg Monte, Corby, Chat, AMOLED, Wave). Samsung’s consumer electronic strengths, eg screen technology, very apparent, but exhibition was more cluttered than 2009. Maybe Samsung Bada could gain momentum in Asia-Pac?
- Qualcomm gaining more traction through the value chain (starting to stretch into enhanced multimedia, as well as “traditional” strengths like multi-access (HSPA/WiFi) chipsets
- Development of low-end phones for developing markets is becoming more apparent (eg ZTE)
- Far wider range of applications than previous years. Hard to pick a lead focus of development (cf maps in 2009),
- A whole Hall dedicated to “AppPlanet” – the nearest thing to hype at this year’s event.
- Everyone but everyone touting their own appstore or app development platform.
- Not clear where the money is – RIM suggesting that business-focussed apps have customers willing to pay; Apple and Android more consumer-focussed as larger addressable market
- Big difference in takeup of data services on devices >$200 vs <$200. Maybe an opportunity at this lower end?
- Facebook to develop “Facebook Zero” for lower-end feature phones
- Far less technology development for operators – eg only six small booths on upper level of the technology Hall, last year was crammed. Maybe this is a confirmation of operators’ consolidation and tight spending
- One new feature was the presence of country booths promoting small/medium developers under the nation’s banner eg France, Belgium, South Korea, Ireland. Tea and sympathy in a small booth promoting the UK.
Low Carbon (not)
- Sustainability, low-carbon and green issues are still mainly token gestures
- Most of the vendors’ stands had rotating slide decks about all their acronyms and how they would do a great job for carriers. Each deck had a slide on how green it all was, but it was always the equivalent of a footnote; they may as well have said “our people are our biggest asset”.
- To be slightly more optimistic, there were a few booths around the place that were more dedicated to renewable sources, esp for base stations in developing world, to some extent also for battery recharging. For example, the Powermat wireless charging approach – not yet at the point of really using renewable energy for the charging, but at least getting rid of the multitude of chargers we plug in.
- Google - keynote by Eric Schmidt: “Mobile First” is Google’s strategy. Message of “we come in peace”, wearing the sheep’s clothing of “surely openness is good for everyone”. Ironically a demo didn’t work because of connectivity shortage – maybe Google could have paid to have priority on a network for the duration of the demo? Android now shipping 60k devices per day. Maybe "Mobile First" means that Google plans to eat the lunch of the mobile operators before it takes on anyone else?
- Apple – maybe the first signs of some question marks over the Apple experience, eg lack of multitasking, lack of Flash, which could open up market gaps for other platforms
- Microsoft – hardly discussed by anyone. Developers, when asked open question, say they are developing for Apple/BlackBerry first, BlackBerry/Apple second, Android third.
- BlackBerry – major upgrade of visibility in the exhibition hall. Pushing hard to try and build lasting momentum in non-enterprise world
- Huawei/ZTE – a major fixture now at MWC
- Vodafone (representative of operators) – difference between prospects and requirements in developing vs mature markets; complaining strongly about Google’s tanks on lawn; supporter of WAC
Overall mood
- Sense of uncertainty and transition – power balances moving, business models changing rapidly as a result of impact of mobile applications
- No sense of any major meaningful announcements
- Very unBarcelona cold and wet weather, so less energy and buzz on the main avenue
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