I’ve seen the future and it is m-commerce. M is for money, isn’t it? Money or mobile, same thing, different pronunciation. At Accenture’s Global Communications Forum last week in Miami Beach, the promise of m-commerce was underlined over and over by diverse executives in the wireless industry. NTT DoCoMo Chairman Kouji Ohboshi listed the variety of ways DoCoMo is making money from wireless data. DoCoMo collects portal use , advertising placement, bill collection and settlement fees. Going forward, Japan’s largest telecom company plans to charge fees for remote control services, remote meter reading, inventory management services and other applications. Not surprisingly, DoCoMo hopes to capture the business market for wireless data too. Basically, if you can transmit it wirelessly, DoCoMo plans to find a way to charge for it.
People are growing tired of acquiring “things,”‘ Ohboshi said, and more are trying to get satisfaction from knowledge and entertainment. Ohboshi said those nonmaterial items have a higher value than material goods.
In Norway, SMS users are paying upwards of a dollar each to send jokes-and insults-wirelessly. Accenture’s wireless guru Richard Siber pointed out that older adults are not overly concerned about privacy issues (a potential concern in m-commerce applications) and youth are asking when they will be able to use their wireless phones to pay for things.
Telematics seems like a sure bet, with experts in that industry claiming renewal rates above 90 percent for in-car wireless communications and computing services.
Whether it is video accompanying traditional e-mail or something more sophisticated, people are ready to wirelessly send text. And they had better, if the wireless industry is going to prosper. Several presenters at Accenture’s conference noted that the industry cannot count on raw new users to generate growth. Instead, industry must find additional uses.
Or as BellSouth Corp. Chairman Duane Ackerman so aptly phrased it, “It’s the applications, stupid.”
Real value generates real revenue, Ackerman said. While the market is edgy and some stock prices look bleak, Ackerman’s mantra is true. Just ask Fidelty Investments’ Joe Ferra, who said his company started offering wireless services as a way to retain customers, but now is signing customers because of its wireless component.
The future looks like data. The applications will come. And when they do, industry can find a way to delight the customer, to paraphrase Accenture’s Tom Pike.
And delighted customers will be paying customers. Hopefully, happily paying customers.
