Oct 7, 2007
This paper discusses the potential and applications for third screen – mobile phone – for businesses of all sizes. Mobile phone usage has become very common among all ages and trades. According to the CTIA – The Wireless Associate®, there are over 239 million mobile phone users in the US alone.
The computing power and advanced display screens combined with powerful wireless networks at an affordable monthly price have attracted many businesses to start developing and using applications on their mobile phones. Unlike TV and PC, mobile is virtually always ON, has no cords, is easy to carry, and stays with the user anywhere they go. Generally when an adult leaves home he or she carries three things: car keys, a wallet or purse, and a mobile phone.
According to Jupiter research, (Nov, 2006) in 2006, mobile entertainment revenue worldwide had reached about $17 billion and was expected to become $47 billion by 2009. North America contributed about 14% to this total in 2006 and is expected to contribute 19% by 2009. This means the mobile entertainment sector has generated about $2.3 billion in 2006 in North America alone with the potential to grow to $8.9 billion by year 2009.
The untapped market is the focus of this paper, which is related to mobile applications beyond entertainment. While mobile ring tones, wallpaper, ring-back tones, music downloads, video such as YouTube, and social networking services may continue grow, the common usage of text messaging as an application for businesses and consumers will evolve because of its cost effectiveness, creative use of technology, and convenience. For instance, peer-to-peer text messaging is at an all time high in the US among the consumers, however, businesses are yet to adapt to the usage of text messaging applications as commonly as email.
Per the CTIA (Mar 2007), for the United States there were about 93.55 billion text and MMS (picture) messages sent or received in Q3 and Q4 of 2006. That means about 19 billion messages per month changed hands. In addition, there were about 199.9 million SMS or text messaging capable phones in the hands of US consumers, 63.4 million camera or MMS capable phones, and 99 million US subscribers are actively using wireless data by the end of 2006.
