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February 3, 2010
Where there are problems, there are opportunities. That’s cliché, but it also sums up one of the reasons why wireless has been so successful in so many developing countries, the topic of Pyramid Research’s new report, Mobile Enterprise Services in Emerging Markets: A Survey of Innovation and Opportunities.
Take Africa, where counterfeit goods are rampant, with nearly 100 Nigerians recently killed by a tainted batch of fake pharmaceuticals. In response, a startup called Sproxil created Mobile Product Authentication (MPA): Manufacturers put a unique code, hidden under a scratch-off panel, on their products. The potential buyer then sends the code via SMS to the authentication service, which sends an instant reply about whether the product is authentic or counterfeit. Sproxil sells the scratch panels and SMS bundles to manufacturers. Consumers pay nothing to use the service because the manufacturer pays for both the query and response messages.
Today, MPA is a B2C offering, but Sproxil sees the market potentially expanding to B2B. For example, a manufacturer could use MPA throughout its supply chain, with scratch-off panels on cartons and pallets.
Besides being yet another example of the entrepreneurial spirit that’s common in developing countries, MPA also is noteworthy in how it turns the problem of counterfeit goods into an opportunity for just about any manufacturer. Some examples:
- It’s a potential market differentiator for their products and brands, especially when constant news reports about counterfeit, sometimes deadly products have consumers and sales channels looking for peace of mind.
- It’s a low-cost opportunity to advertise and conduct market research. The yes or no response takes only a few characters, leaving the rest of the message space for promoting other products or for surveying customers. This market research opportunity should be especially attractive to manufacturers that sell into markets where survey opportunities are limited or expensive.
MPA also is noteworthy for its use of SMS, which is arguably the only wireless data technology with anything approaching ubiquity in developing markets. Add in the fact that virtually the entire installed base of handsets supports SMS, and it’s no wonder that so many enterprises rely on it to support their B2B and B2C offerings, including mobile commerce and mobile marketing.
Some vendors are leveraging SMS to sell email into markets where smartphones and 3G data plans are too expensive for all but the largest enterprises. One example is Synchronica’s Mobile Gateway product, which resides in the network and converts incoming email to SMS messages for delivery to handsets that lack an email client; the process also works in reverse. It supports push email, providing a way to compete with platforms such as the BlackBerry.
Sure, emerging markets might not always have the technologies and financial wherewithal of developed markets, but that sure hasn’t stopped enterprises, mobile operators and vendors there from finding innovative ways to do business.
— Tim Kridel, Analyst at large
Related resources:
Mobile Enterprise Services in Emerging Markets; A Survey of Innovation and Opportunities
Research report published January 2010
This report analyzes the prospects of mobile services targeting enterprises of all sizes in emerging markets. It evaluates services and mobile network operators with an eye to the uniqueness of each market while continually referencing more mature markets. The report assesses the prospects of various business-oriented services as well as specific initiatives, looking at the roles of applications such as SMS, email, m-commerce and digital signatures as well as M2M services — telematics and telemetry. Handsets, netbooks and laptops are also discussed. Seven case studies covering mobile operators, enterprises and a WiMAX operator examine Autotransportes de Carga Tres Guerras in Mexico, Zap in Kenya and Tanzania, Hospital Espanhol in Brazil, Vodacom Business in South Africa, Yota and MTS in Russia, and Vodafone in Romania.
Global Mobile Data Forecast
Forecasts published quarterly
Updated on a quarterly basis, this Mobile Data Forecast product provides a complete picture of demand trends for the global market. The Excel output includes five years of historical data and five years of market projections for metrics such as penetration, mobile subscriptions (by type of package, by operator or MVNO and by network technology), users of specific data services (SMS, music, etc.), MOU, ARPS (by operator, by subscription type, by service, by application) and revenue (by messaging and non-messaging applications). The Forecast is based on extensive field research and uses a consistent methodology, aiming to capture the total spending on mobile data services on an aggregate global level. Data from these Forecasts is available online for subscribers to our DataTracker service.
Mobile Internet Adoption: Content is the Catalyst
Telecom Insider published December 2009
Mobile online services remain an attractive but elusive opportunity in much of Africa and the Middle East. The low usage of traditional, PC-based Internet services leaves a void that will be largely filled by mobile handsets, and social networking will be a key application. Case studies cover Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa.
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