CAMBRIDGE, U.K.-Western European prepaid mobile phone users may be key to generating increased revenues from data services, according to a new report by Analysys.
Emily Turnbull, lead author of the report explains: “Prepaid customers already account for 63 percent of active mobile users in Western Europe and, despite operator efforts to convert them to contract subscriptions, will remain a substantial segment of the mobile market for at lease the next five years.”
According to Analysys, operators are not yet offering recently introduced next-generation services available to prepaid customers, despite their large hold on the market. “It is now critical that operators turn their attention to providing common services to all their customers, if they are to succeed in tapping the full revenue potential of new technologies such as GPRS and UMTS,” said Turnbull.
Analysys believes that if new next-generation services are made available to European prepaid customers by early next year, those users alone could generate almost $15.7 billion in GPRS and UMTS data service revenue by 2007. The firm suggests operators either upgrade existing prepaid platforms or market converged prepaid and postpaid billing and customer care systems to offer new services to prepaid customers.
