The portal strategies of the future
| The use of mobile portals and mobile clients is still in its infancy, but in the near future this area will experience large changes. Amongst other things we will see mobile operators becoming more aware about their strategies in this area and their choice of strategy will have a significant influence on the other players in the mobile value chain. Especially the players that develop, produce, sell and market mobile services will be affected by the operators change of focus on the mobile portal and mobile client areas. Consumers will also experience the consequences of the operators’ choice of strategy regarding mobile portals and clients, as their strategy will influence the level of freedom that customers have in connection with purchasing mobile services. Depending on their choice of strategy, mobile operators can have a very large influence on whether mobile customers will have free access to all mobile services on the market, or whether mobile customers will only have access to mobile services chosen by the operator. Strand Consult has identified the four different portal-/client strategies that the mobile operators will basically be able to choose between in the future. The mobile operators have the choice between using one or more portals/clients for the sales of mobile services to customers, but their choice of strategy depends on their overall services strategy. Depending on this strategy, the operators will have the choice of using the following strategies: – Single-Portal-Strategi – Multi-Portal-Strategi – Segment-Portal-Strategi – Shopping-Mall-Strategi From an operator’s perspective it would be obvious and natural to implement a Single-Portal strategy, as this strategy is closest to most mobile operators’ current mobile services mentality and it is also this strategy that most mobile operators are currently using. But as the market matures and develops, both customers and content providers will demand a more open market and for the mobile operators it will be natural to offer customers and content providers access to more distribution channels (portals or clients); in this connection it would be natural for the operator to increase focus on implementing/adopting a Multi-Portal strategy. Mobile operators are increasingly perceiving their customer base as an inhomogeneous mass and are therefore also increasingly starting to segment their customer base. Segmenting their customer base gives the mobile operators and content providers better possibilities to understand and thereby meet the customers’ requirements. The Segment-Portal strategy, where portals and clients are targeted at certain customer segments to maximise the sales of mobile services, will thereby become an obvious strategy for mobile operators to adopt. Many operators believe they need to differentiate themselves via mobile services. There will however also be mobile operators that do not find it essential to differentiate themselves by using mobile services. For these mobile operators it will be natural to implement a Shopping-Mall strategy and thereby let other players sell mobile services to mobile customers. The Shopping-Mall strategy is a different and new strategy compared to many mobile operators current strategies. The Shopping-Mall strategy will be able to create more traffic and sales in individual virtual mobile stores, by attracting more content providers and shoppers – in the same way as in the physical world with shopping malls. By using a Shopping-Mall strategy, operators gain a significantly larger and more exciting selection of services which will positively influence the sales of services. The Shopping-Mall strategy will result in lower CAPEX and OPEX for the mobile operators and this strategy therefore gives much larger possibilities for mobile operators to achieve a profitable business on the sales of mobile services via portals and clients. In Strand Consults report – Successful strategies for the future Mobile VAS market – we have identified four future portal-/client strategies on the VAS market. Each of the four strategies has been thoroughly analysed to identify the different revenue sources that mobile operators can gain a share of. The analysis shows that the more complex strategies still gives mobile operators access to the same revenue sources as the simple strategies, but also open many new sources of revenue when using the more open and complex strategies. The report also analyses how the four strategies affect the services market and the influence the strategies have on the various market players in the mobile service segment. |
Successful strategies on the future VAS market |
