To a graphical artist the cover embodies the challenge to mirror the Netsize Guide’s content in an attractive and seductive way. The cover reflects what is going on inside the book, using an eye candy approach. Not necessarily to be understood at face value directly but done teasingly enough to get the main idea of the guide. And while your eyes scan the topics, the cover’s visual is referring to it in a subtle way.

At first sight, take the cover as a presentation for what The Netsize Guide holds in store for you: the trends that matter in our mobile digital lives.

On a deeper layer the cover tells us how we control the world around us through mobile applications and what are the key ingredients and enablers: the interplay of transaction, transformation and trust.

Tap to pay the bus ride, buy the souvenir using banking on-the-go, check in on the plane you have to catch, upgrade your seat, socialize with friends, enjoy multimedia content and games: behind all of this is the notion of security and trust and the transaction opportunities that enable us to transform our lifestyle that centers on being mobile, yet connected, anywhere, anytime.

These are examples of Truly Mobile experiences. An outcome of Transformation, Transaction and Trust. You feel safe when you push a phone button or app. You get what you expect – and it is and does what you want, or so you think, because your mobile life depends on it.

The Netsize Guide by Gemalto: Truly Mobile shows us how these three themes interplay to enable the experience. So, let the cover image inspire you to discover what is behind that first page, and be inspired by the content of the book to do discover the world of mobile.

The Netsize Guide by Gemalto: Truly Mobile – design & layout: Marko de Hoop (markodehoop.nl)

Gemalto and Netsize launch the brand new Netsize Guide by Gemalto today, the comprehensive reference work on the state of mobile technology and its impact on business and society.

Available as a free PDF download today from www.netsize.com, the 10th edition has identified three themes that characterize the state of mobile today and its future:

• Transaction – How we’ve come to rely on mobile devices for commerce from researching products to making purchases.
• Transformation – How mobile devices are increasingly driving content, communications and connectivity.
• Trust – How we require — and will soon demand — simple, transparent services and devices we can trust.

Aptly titled Truly Mobile, The Netsize Guide by Gemalto underlines these three key themes, supported by insights and interviews with over a dozen senior executives from companies across the business ecosystem including ARM, Atlas Premium Brands, BNP Paribas, CMO Council, The Coca-Cola Company, Gameloft, GlobalPlatform, Informa Telecoms & Media, Millennial Media, SingTel, Texas Instruments, Trusted Logic, Yahoo! and others.

We thank Peggy Anne Salz — chief analyst and publisher of MobileGroove.com, a top 50 source of analysis and commentary on all things mobile — who once again did a great job of interviewing the companies and writing the theme chapters of the book.

Highly rated …

In its 10-year history the Netsize Guide has built a large and loyal audience of readers who rate it among their must-read industry resources.

According to a 2010 survey of Netsize Guide readers, the majority of respondents — that is to say, YOU — gave the Netsize Guide high marks indeed! On a scale of 1-to-10, 75 percent of respondents gave the book an ’8′ or higher. Specifically, 37 percent gave it an ’8′, 29 percent gave it a ’9′ and 9 percent awarded it a perfect ’10′. You also told us you consider the Netsize Guide to be better or much better than other mobile industry reports. Allow us to thank you again for your participation in our survey and for your high appreciation of our work!

Packed with stats …

In line with our long track record for excellence the Netsize Guide by Gemalto uniquely brings together a wealth of market statistics from its partners Informa Telecoms & Media, comScore and SocialBakers. The 220-page book is packed with detailed market forecasts that reveal current operator market share, smartphone penetration, and consumer usage of mobile apps and social network Facebook across over 40 countries, and 3-year forecasts (2011-2014) for selected data.

An expert resource for benchmarking and planning …

Covering the use of mobile technologies for business and entertainment applications, the Netsize Guide has served as a beacon for business professionals and executives across industry sectors for a decade. Its unique format represents a balance of thought leadership and exclusive C-level interviews with in-depth market analysis, practical case studies and a wealth of practical mobile telecommunications data. Thus, the Netsize Guide by Gemalto is an indispensible knowledge resource for benchmarking and planning mobile services, allowing mobile professionals everywhere to stay up to date with mobile trends.

… available today as a free pdf download

The Netsize Guide by Gemalto is available as a free pdf download directly from the Netsize website and from our global launch partners including: 4A’s, AIME,the Mobile Data Association (MDA), Mobile Entertainment, the MEF, MobileGroove and ServicesMobiles.

We are confident you will enjoy reading this Netsize Guide by Gemalto and benefit from its insights. It is an essential read certain to serve you well as an industry reference for the year to come. Please feel free to contact us any time with your comments or ideas via Twitter (@NetsizeGuide and @NetsizeCorp), email [guide (at) netsize.com] or our websites www.gemalto.com and www.netsize.com.

Alexander Vlasblom
Marketing Communications Director, Netsize & Trusted Logic
Gemalto

Convergence is changing the internet access market. Consumers increasingly access the internet via both fixed and wireless connections. Mobile operators, fixed internet access providers and cable services providers all find themselves competing for the same customer who is already (or soon will be) consuming any digital content via any device – desktop, notebook, tablet, smartphone and smart TV.

 € 65 million purchases via Internet+ in 2010

Netsize mPayment Internet+ billing enables content providers to benefit from this convergence. Netsize mPayment Internet+ reaches some 40 million users in total, 93% of the Internet population in France. It is available on Alice, Bouygues Telecom, Free, Orange and SFR. A single connection to mPayment allows providers of for example video on demand (football, movies, music) to develop innovative services and monetize their content to the largest possible audience – using mobile and online payment methods.

In 2010, 65 million euros worth of transactions has been billed through Internet+, a growth of 60% from the year before. It is the fastest growing payment method in France.

5 reasons to choose Internet+

1. Cardless payment method
2. 40 million potential users
3. Accellerating adoption
4. 82% conversion ratio
5. One-shot, pay-per-use as well as subscription models

With Netsize mPayment, you quickly deploy Internet+ as well as all available carrier billing methods in your web store and mobile stores. Convenience for your customers, revenues for your business.

It was a small sentence that caught my attention in the news. The average hourly rate for  a freelance mobile app developer in 2011 has dropped by almost half (!), down to 49 euros from 100 euros a year ago (source: FreelanceMatch.nl). According to a commentary, one of the reasons behind this this decline is the explosive growth of supply of mobile app developers, many of whom had to lower their rates to stay competitive.

Demand and supply

In the past two years the output of mobile app developers has been nothing less than phenomenal. The Apple iTunes app store currently carries 392,871 apps, and Google Android Market is closing in with 190,067 apps in store. These counts are taken from our latest report Netsize Application Store Billing, available as a free download from www.netsize.com.

The appetite for apps is not likely to level off soon. Smartphone sales are accelerating globally and all smartphone users are app-hungry. In fact, the abundance of apps – entertaining or professional, useful or useless – might also be the driver behind the massive increase in smartphone demand. This is certainly the view of device manufacturers. All handset vendors already have or will soon launch their own app store as part of a compelling offer in a smartphone market that is heating up.

Where is your app?

But where does that leave the struggling developer? An hourly rate of 49 euros doesn’t deliver that nice sports car. Clearly, the only way to earn that kind of money is to choose creative business model that delivers.

As in all retail, distribution is a key factor.  There certainly is not shortage of app storefronts to choose from.  The Wireless Industry Partnership (WIP) already counts 120 active application stores of all sorts and sizes in their latest survey. This certainly doesn’t make it easier for developers to pick the one(s) right for them.

How about reach? In the Netsize report, iTunes ranks number 6 in our ranking by number of apps in store. Android Market takes the number 11 spot. Both definitely attract a lot of visits, and other research has shown that a presence on iTunes is a must if developers want to increase exposure and revenues for their apps.

All other application stores listed in the top 15 are independent, meaning they are not limited to any one platform, operating system, device brand or mobile network operator in particular. These stores aim to be a one-stop portal for users to find and download apps. The number of apps on offer via these stores can reach a mind boggling 700,000. A closer examination reveals two categories of app store: application directories and independent app stores. It is an important distinction that matters a lot if you want to make money and get users to come back for more.

The last mile

App directories such as Appitalism, Chomp, Appolicious and AppStoreHQ aggregate content from app stores such as iTunes and Android Market to promote and re-merchandise it. Thus, app directories don’t host the apps. Their key focus and strength is to make it easy for users to search and discover apps. What’s more, there is little difference between the directories. They are effectively lookalikes, competing on the sheer number of apps referenced in their storefronts.

Put another way, these directories are not app stores in the proper sense. Users may choose the app they want here, but it’s not where they actually buy it. Instead, the user’s browser is directed to the hosting store. Directories lack the view of that all-important “last mile”.

Making money from apps has become a numbers game. Developers therefore need tools that provide them insight into their apps´ commercial performance and opportunities for cross-sell and up-sell based on detailed information about their customer base. This is where independent app stores such as GetJar come in. In addition to hosting the actual app, these stores also provide mobile analytics and other tools that can help developers to better merchandise and monetize their applications.

Discovery is good, billing is better

Developers can’t sell what users can’t find. So, naturally, being found is an important aspect of running an app business.

Knowing where and how to spend your marketing funds effectively is at least as important, if not more. But the end goal is to build revenues and a sustainable business. For developers being able to charge users and take advantage of the window of opportunity that opens at the moment of the impulse buy is critical.

This is why application stores are implementing mobile operator billing, providing end-users with an easy to use and trustworthy method of payment that can be used for “on mobile” and online transactions alike. Users can even make a purchase from inside the app, a payment mechanism known as in-app billing. This approach allows developers to charge for additional features and functionality (such as a move to another level in a mobile game), allowing developers to monetize their app and build stickiness.

Developers and app publishers make their money in this last mile and should make use of the analytics tools and payment approaches available on the market. Even as the initial costs to create an app go down (and with it their hourly rate), they can make up for the losses by choosing the right route to market. Picking the right app store is key to make a profitable business out of apps. You might be able to afford that fancy sports car after all.

First published May 2010, and fully updated in June 2011, Application Store Billing report is the first report to identify and document the characteristics of a winning and competitive app store. This is echoed in the foreword provided by Wireless Industry Partnership (WIP), publisher of the WIP App Store Catalog, the most comprehensive listing of mobile app stores available.

Analyzing business models, the report identifies these key characteristics:

• Convenience (discoverability and finding everything in one place), compatibility (apps specific to the device), choice (a wide selection to choose from) and ease of payment are the key criteria that make app stores a destination for end users
• Global reach, a solid infrastructure including flexible payment systems, analytics and merchandizing tools, and an app store´s marketing power are the key enablers for app developer success

The report incorporates latest analysis of emerging mobile device ecosystems and application store trends, drawing from research by ABI Research, Chetan Sharma Consulting, Deutsche Bank, Juniper Research and VisionMobile, as well as the Netsize mobile market trend survey.

Application Store Billing report also contains fully updated Netsize rankings of top-70 application stores, including ranking by app store type (platform, device, operator, independent, directory) and app type (free apps, paid apps, total apps).

The report is available as a free download from www.netsize.com.

Retailers are waking up to the imperative to harness mobile – as they did the Internet – to interact efficiently and effectively with their customers. The end-game is no longer about enabling one-off interactions that result in the sale of goods and services. The winning approach is the one that turns a transaction into a customer conversation.

Against this backdrop, an effective mobile payment system must do much more than manage and enable transactions. It must also enable the retailer to communicate with its customers and build mutually profitable relationships.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) takes a central role in strategies aimed at optimizing customer relationships to boost both business profitability and customer satisfaction.

After all, it costs much more to acquire new customers than it does to sell (again) to existing ones. Delight the customer? Mobile brings a new dimension – and a new immediacy – to this best practice.

What can a mobile payment solution do to enable online retailers to implement an efficient CRM strategy using mobile?

Let´s analyze the case of MPME: pay with your mobile in France.

MPME (Mobile Payment & Mobile Enablers) is a new scheme focused on enabling and enhancing remote mobile payment in France. The solution, which launched last year, allows customers to pays for low-cost items using their mobile phone.

Using Netsize´s platform for mobile payments, mPayment with MPME – which runs on the mobile Web and across Wi-Fi networks – retailers can easily add mobile payments on their online and mobile web and WAP store fronts.

In practice, MPME ensures that consumers can make a payment using their mobile phone without revealing their mobile subscriber number.

This is unlike, for example, Payforit, the framework for carrier-billed mobile payment in the United Kingdom, that does pass on the mobile subscriber number to the merchant.

Instead, MPME provides each consumer a unique ID number, a classification that allows the retailer to recognize the customer again without having to know the customer’s precise mobile subscriber number.

Knowing how to serve

The benefits are two-fold. For retailers, the solution allows them to collect key customer insights (such as past purchases) that will enable them to better know and serve their customers.

Building up knowledge of what customers prefer and purchase over time is key when the goal is encouraging repeat buys and long-term customer loyalty.

For consumers, the pay-off is all about convenience. Retailers – because they can make the connection between the transaction made and the customer who made it – have a much clearer idea of what goods and services would likely appeal to a particular customer. Additionally, retailers can also identify and reward return customers.

Since data is collected and enriched using a unique ID number, customers don’t have to be worried about privacy concerns. The retailer doesn’t know exactly who the consumer is; they just know how to serve her best.

Transaction follows conversation follows transaction follows …

But the interaction doesn’t stop there. Beyond enabling payment, Netsize mPayment with MPME also allows merchants and retailers to connect and communicate with their customers.

Specifically, this solution enables merchants to carry on a conversation, sending SMS text messages that are delivered to each customer’s unique MPME identification.

More importantly, this CRM approach also encourages customers to answer back. In practice, users can simply send a text to the merchant´s mobile service to reply to offers, ask for more product information or just react to a merchant’s call to action.

The result: a form of valuable and effective two-way text communication that allows retailers to better serve their customers – and encourages consumers to respond to the messages they receive.

Service discovery and promotion with MPME

The loop feeds back

Thus, the discussion (and the relationship) can continue long after the consumer has made a purchase in the online store, mobile storefront, or via a mobile application.

It’s easy to imagine scenarios where the merchant can use this solution to text consumers and inform them about similar deals, new products and services, or simply ask permission to follow-up with alters announcements or newsletter updates.

Indeed, merchants and retailers can use the solution to send text messages to customers who are likely to respond based on their past purchasing behavior.

This feedback loop opens the door to a multitude of cross-sell and up-sell opportunities because it helps the merchant to develop (and deliver) services that are relevant, valuable, and sure to retain and grow the customer base.

And isn’t this the goal of CRM in the first place?

More on Mobile Payments & Mobile Enablers: Association Française du Multimédia Mobile AFMM (www.afmm.fr)
More on Payforit: www.payforituk.com

A worthwhile post at Luxury Daily, an online source of luxury marketing news, details the strategies pursued by brands to drive sales and loyalty among high-end connoisseurs.

The fit between mobile and CRM makes excellent business sense. As Jeff Hasen, chief marketing officer of mobile marketing and advertising company Hipcricket, puts it in the post: “It’s important to remember that a campaign with a simple SMS call to action often leads to a consumer joining a mobile loyalty club that provides ongoing benefits to a luxury brand.”

But it’s not just about delivering an appropriate call to action. Mobile CRM drives positive results with affluent consumers because they are accustomed – even demand (!) – a one-to-one conversation when they deal with their brands of choice.

Put another way, this discriminating demographic expects brands, merchants and retailers to know their whims and present them with offers that give them what they want on their terms.

Seen in this light mobile is the best tool and perfectly suited to create and continue this engagement.

What do YOU think? Please share your thoughts by commenting on this blog post.

Few major brands are as sophisticated in their use of the mobile channel as Coca-Cola. To date the company has embraced a wide variety of activities and mechanisms, including apps, games, high-performing SMS campaigns, and even a music download store. At the other end of the spectrum, Coca-Cola has also reported successful mobile commerce trials involving mobile phones and specially equipped vending machines.

Coca-Cola is also one of the first to actively embrace branded apps. In December 2010 it joined with the GSMA to sponsor the Brand App Challenge, a competition in which mobile app developers created “brand apps” for a select group of global consumer brands, including Coca-Cola, with its Coca-Cola, Coke Zero and Diet Coke brands.

While Coke has been quick to jump into branded apps, some recent reports question whether applications can deliver positive results across the board.

A survey of 781 adults in the U.S. conducted by EffectiveUI on behalf of Harris Interactive found the vast majority (76 percent) of mobile app users felt that all brand name companies and organizations should have mobile apps to make shopping or interacting with them easier. However, 38 percent of mobile application users revealed they were not satisfied with most of the apps currently available from their favorite brands. What’s more, 69 percent reported that a brand name mobile app that is not useful, helpful or easy to use, results in a negative perception about the brand.

“Mobile applications are the sure fire way to extend a brand,” Rebecca Flavin, CEO of EffectiveUI, said in a statement. “It’s time for organizations to understand how to fully leverage the mobile channel and optimize a user-centered approach to drive adoption, as well as reinforce and drive brand loyalty.”

What is the business value of branded apps? Which marketing approaches deliver the best results? How has Coke harnessed mobile to encourage brand engagement and deliver effective (even location-linked) mobile advertising? We ask Tom Daly, Coca-Cola Group Manager, Global Connections.

Q: Coca-Cola is a mover in the mobile space. Your company is a premium member of Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and active in promoting the benefits of the mobile channel. Why is mobile so central to your strategy?

A: You need to first understand how we see mobile. For us it’s all about idea of making mobile an “enabler of desire”. Essentially, our mobile strategy was written some 70+ years ago, way before the first cellular connection was ever made. Back then it was about putting our brands “within arms’ reach of desire”. That sentiment was expressed by Robert Woodruff, who was our chairman. That was the way we defined the company’s role as a brand marketer, and as a partner to the bottling companies that manufacture and distribute our brands and our retail partners who carry our brands.

Our task is to create desire for the brands that we create. We have a choice: we can make the mobile phone and enabler of desire, or we can make it a barrier to desire. We chose to make mobile an enabler.

Q: Desire is the end-game – making consumers want to and be able to connect with your brands. What are the recent mobile activities you have pursued to achieve this goal?

A: We use all the mobile mechanisms available. Take simple SMS. We use SMS in a campaign that allows consumers to earn free airtime. They just purchase a Coke and text the code on the packaging to receive free airtime or free text messages. Teenagers, in particular, love our brands and love their phones, so it’s a natural marriage, if you will. It’s a great opportunity to leverage consumer desire for Coca-Cola and mobile.

For the World Cup we did a great program where we let consumers express their feelings about the brands using mobile. Consumers could upload videos of how they celebrated the goals. So this is a great expression of people’s passion and energy for football, which is their same energy and passion they have about Coca-Cola. We connected the two using mobile videos.

Q: One of your most successful campaigns has been Gimme Credit, which received an award from the MMA for its effectiveness and exemplary use of mobile. What can you tell me about the campaign and the key learnings?

A: Yes, that’s the campaign I mentioned that gives consumers free airtime. We have rolled it out in multiple markets and it’s been successful everywhere we’ve tried it. As a company we are testing and learning what works not in one market; but in many markets. We’ve learned that there are certain things that consumers everywhere want and Gimme Credit is success because people want free airtime and rewards for their purchases.

We’ve done something like Gimme Credit in India, the U.K. and Germany, and we’ve done it in tests in the U.S. as well. The challenge – and the opportunity – is how to get scale. The next step is to get the scale of The Coca-Cola Company and the scale of mobile technology aligned so we can really start building bigger, more broadly accessible programs. That way, by the time we get to events like the London Olympics or the next World Cup, we will have the ability to deploy these mobile campaigns on a much larger scale and on a much more global level.

Q: Gimme Credit is universally accepted, universally appreciated. But brands still have to have a local focus. What are the tensions or challenges of being a global brand and maintaining a local focus?

A: The challenge is to develop powerful core ideas for a campaign and then to localize the “art” of execution, while scaling the “science”.  One way we accomplish that is to empower a country to take the lead for certain global initiatives. For example this year’s [2010] Festive campaign is a global campaign with the digital –including mobile – led by teams in Germany. Whether you celebrate Hanukkah, or Kwanza, or Christmas, or have just celebrated Ramadan – it’s all about family and bringing people together. Coca-Cola is a part of that experience, but there’s enough that is similar to create common experiences around the world and across digital and mobile campaigns.  Broadly speaking, that’s the territory of the “big idea”. From there, we find ways to scale while at the same time enabling maximum flexibility for localization.

Q: Staying with the global push for a moment, how do you manage these, to drive global mobile services and marketing innovation at Coca-Cola?

A: It’s a disciplined process, as you might imagine. The key is to keep a clear understanding of the roll out and who is doing what. So, we may have a single lead agency for mobile, a company that is doing work at the center. The work they do and the deliverables they are responsible for are clearly defined. There may be a transition to a local agency that has the latitude to take a hand- off related to certain core ideas and assets.

We have elements that can be reused across geographies. It’s back to the idea of scaling the science and localizing is the art. Underlying it all, from a technical point of view, are well documented standards and processes.

Q: You are sharply focused on mobile and it is listed as a line item in your budget, which is quite a statement. Could you quantify for me the opportunity in mobile for Coca-Cola?

A: I can certainly share are a couple of data points with you. We serve our products 1.6 billion times a day, which means that 1.6 billion servings of Coca Cola are poured every day.  There are five billion mobile subscribers worldwide. Do the math and there is a lot of opportunity to use mobile to reach these consumers. And again, when you think that our core strategy is about enabling desire for our brands, then there is also opportunity to use mobile to reach and retain many of the five billion consumers who have mobile and may not currently drink Coke, for example.

Mobile is a line item in the budget. Mobile is included because we know we need to manage and understand mobile. Most importantly, we can not treat mobile as a standalone activity. We know that mobile works best when incorporated in a larger marketing context. So, to help us understand the optimal mix, we’re keeping track of it along with other line items. I can’t share the precise trajectory, but it wouldn’t surprise anyone to know that mobile is growing.

Download the updated Netsize Guide 2010 to read the rest of this interview.

14-17 February 2011, Fira de Barcelona, Spain

Meet Netsize at MWC Barcelona, the mobile industry’s “must attend” event, at the Gemalto stand in Hall 8, 8A102.

Book a Meeting at MWC Barcelona 2011 with a Netsize Representative

It is with great pleasure that we present to you the Netsize Guide 2010, Mobile Renaissance: Updated Edition.

For the first time in its 9-year history the book is now updated in its publication year with five new interviews and hot new 2010 telecom market data. Now you can get a complete view on the mobile market trends, quarter by quarter, in over 40 countries globally.

Download the Netsize Guide 2010 Updated Edition

We´ve packed this 300-page report with innovative business cases around the world that show how mobile can be used to engage with customers and build brand experiences that drive revenues and customer satisfaction.

From mobile marketing and advertising to mobile apps and mobile payments, this Guide aims to make mobile practical as well as be your inspiration for mobile´s endless application possibilities.

Share with us your opinion of the Netsize Guide. Please take a moment to take part in our Netsize Guide reader survey. The questionnaire will take a few minutes to complete. Your feedback will help us to stay focused on what matters to you.

Take the Netsize Guide reader survey

Follow @NetsizeCorp and @NetsizeGuide on Twitter. You can also visit our Netsize Guide microsites – Mobile Renaissance and the Netsize briefing room on MSearchGroove – where you are welcome to post your suggestions regarding new topics and trends you feel we should explore in the Netsize Guide.