(keitai-l) Re: One big family?

From: Daniel Helmer <daniel_helmer_at_hotmail.com>
Date: 11/15/01
Message-ID: <F211NWtI5Yw9BuFMWT500024724@hotmail.com>
Hi folks,

>Microsoft's basic proposition is:
>
>    What use, if any, is internet access on a cell phone if you can't:
>    1) make money from it (DoCoMo does this)
>    2) allow the user to transparently buy stuff and make
>        make money from the transaction (indeed, the profit
>        gained by terminating the transaction could *easily*
>        make the any profit gained from terminating the call
>        look petty).

>Every operator wants to get a piece of this pie, but I'm sure the >banks 
>will have
>something to say about that.

1) I agree with this one
2) I think the notion that there is massive incremental revenue in Mobile 
Commerce (eg. monetary transactions from people actually buying goods using 
their mobile terminal) is basically wrong. Companies who see the mobile as a 
new point of sale (say a retailer or etailer - or bank...) are likely to be 
very disappointed with the incremental revenue from the mobile channel. What 
is the value proposition to buy a book or CD from Amazon.com on your mobile 
phone? Sure, some people probably will, but not enough to build a business 
on it.

The real value in m-commerce is not incremental, but as a complementary 
channel and to influence overall sales, eg. you check certain info/receive 
voucher/get order details/customer service on your keitai, but you actually 
buy the thing in the store or website because those channels are much more 
user friendly.

Look at Tsutaya. They make great use of the mobile channel, but do pretty 
much all sales in store or online. Not many transactions are actually 
carried out on the keitai. Only mobile transactions that are timely, simple 
and/or location based will ever work, and there are not many of those. 
Non-physical goods like e-tickets & software/games/ringtones/pictures being 
the only ones that really work so far.

With this set-up, the mobile channel is still very important to influence 
sales and promote customer loyalty, but very few transactions will actually 
be terminated on the mobile phone.

So if you ask me (I know nobody did, but anyway...), don't count on 
m-commerce sales transaction revenues. Gotta find other ways to make 
money... (darn good to be an operator then)

Cheers,

Daniel Helmer


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Received on Fri Nov 16 01:17:26 2001