Welcome to the latest issue of the Airwide newsletter. It’s been a busy few months with many major industry developments. We’ve come off of the two most popular events in the mobile industry – Mobile World Congress 2009 and CTIA Wireless 2009.

In addition, the industry has undergone a major transformation with the rise of the app store. In this issue we’ll share excerpts of recent research by mobileSQUARED into the app-store phenomenon, along with a podcast of a roundtable discussion at Mobile World Congress regarding the role of applications in mobile messaging and we’ll update you on important Airwide news and events. .

IN THIS ISSUE

The Age of the App-Store: Bringing Mobile Apps to the Mass Market

by mobilesquared

In less than 12 months, the App Store has become firmly entrenched within the wireless industry’s lexicon and in another 12 months it likely will have evolved beyond a noun into an adjective as Apple has ably demonstrated that providing an inextricably simple and enjoyable user experience will create usage, consumption and revenue from a mobile content services market that has been suffering from lethargy in recent years. Apple has added the fizz to the mobile content and service industry’s cider.

And there is good reason why there is much anticipation and excitement around the emergence of the app store phenomenon. As of 19 January 2009, Apple announced that over 500 million apps have been downloaded from the App Store - up by 200 million apps compared to the start of December. In less than 50 days an average of 4.5 million apps were downloaded per day. Based on 11.42 million iPhone users at the end of 2008 downloading 500 million apps equates to 43.78 downloads (on average) per person. What’s more, based on consumption behavior between early December and mid-January, a further 270 million downloads are likely to have occurred up to early March. And if that trend continues, mobileSQUARED anticipates Apple announcing its one billionth app download by end-April 2009 at the very latest.

Research by mobileSQUARED has revealed that around 75% of apps downloaded are free. Of those paid-for apps costing between US$0.99-999, the average cost per download is US$2.20. According to our calculations, 192.5 million apps have been purchased generating a total of US$423.5 million since launch. Based on Apple’s 30-70 revenue share model, the App Store has created its founder US$127.05 million and US$296.5 million for the developers and publishers.

To download the full length version of the mobilesquared white paper please visit this link.

Airwide on telecomtv

Airwide was recently featured in an interview on the App Store phenomenon on TelecomTV. To view the full-length interview please visit the TelecomTV site.

Industry Roundtable Podcast from Mobile World Congress

Again this year, Airwide brought together leading mobile technology companies to debate the results of a global research report into mobile messaging trends at a roundtable event held at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.  It was attended by industry representatives from O2, Bango, Cloudmark, Telmap and others.

You can listen to the full roundtable discussion podcast here.  Overall, the representatives participating in the discussion concluded that:

• The future of the messaging industry is healthy with all panelists predicting strong growth for the next 12 months.
• Growth will come from the deployment of advanced data services, the introduction of innovative new applications, an increase in the use of the mobile internet, the continued adoption of smartphones and the growth in mobile payments particularly in developing markets.
• Revenues from SMS will continue to grow.
• SMS will provide the foundation for next generation data services such as mobile social networking, mobile applications, mobile broadband, the mobile internet and mobile advertising.
• Mobile messaging will also be the driver for enterprise based messaging services such as text reminders for dental or doctor appointments, text based energy meter readings and even interactive teaching tools to make learning more fun for school children. Services that are relevant for the end user and easily accessible will be the ones that win out.
• Ensuring that operators have a flexible and reliable infrastructure in place to support the roll out of these services will be the key to success.
• Mobile security is still an issue. As SMS becomes increasingly used for financial transactions, it is a medium which will also become more appealing for hackers to exploit. Mobile operators can use their infrastructure as an enabler to deploy new services but also to protect subscribers from possible security risks.

These conclusions support the results of a survey which Airwide also unveiled today in the form of a whitepaper.  The whitepaper states that:

• 100% of operators interviewed do NOT believe the current economic situation will impact upon their spending next year.
• 100% of operators surveyed are seeking to use the investment they have made in developing their mobile messaging infrastructure in order to introduce value-added services such as mobile social networking, mobile applications, mobile broadband, IM-and presence-based services and the mobile internet.
• Two thirds of operators believe SMS will be the foundation of these next generation data services.
• Of all the data services cited:
• 75% of operators will be investing in mobile social networking and/or mobile applications;
• 62.5% of operators will be investing in mobile broadband
• 50% of operators will be investing in location based services, IM-presence based services and/or the mobile internet;
• One third of operators believe mobile advertising will play a very important role in the future growth of mobile messaging;
• 50% of operators believe mobile broadband will play a very important role in expanding the messaging market.

Airwide launches Service Innovation Module

During CTIA and coinciding with the launch of RIM’s AppWorld TM, Airwide has unveiled a separately scalable Service Innovation Module designed to help operators rapidly launch high quality applications. The Service Innovation Module also enables operators to enhance existing and upcoming services with unique assets, context and intelligence while minimizing cost and without disruption to the existing infrastructure. No other approach on the market today can rival the openness, power, tool-set or flexibility of the new Airwide Service Innovation Module which can cut the amount of time necessary to rollout new and enhanced services by up to 75%.  This yields significant cost savings, jumpstarts additional revenue generation and allows operators to play a more significant role in mobile data services.

The subscriber interest in mobile applications is clear -- Apple’s App Store, just one of many examples, now boasts more than 25,000 downloadable applications, and the blogosphere is buzzing that it may become a $1 billion business by the end of 2009.  Additionally, research shows that smartphones will account for 23% of all new handsets sold by 2013, driven by the proliferation of online stores selling specialized applications(1).  Turning the tables on the idea of competing with app-stores for subscriber wallet share, Airwide’s Service Innovation Module lets operators enrich applications with unique capabilities like messaging and browsing, location, user profiling, presence, security, charging and others, making them more powerful, feature rich and aligned with subscriber expectations. In the process, operators can secure the appropriate share of untapped revenue opportunities, generate more interactive engagement with subscribers, and regain control of the subscriber experience.

For more information visit our website.

Airwide and GoMo from the Show

For those of you that missed CTIA, check out MobileMessaging2.0 which featured live coverage of the show brought to us through a collaboration with online news site GoMo News to provide real-time blogging of CTIA news and analysis.  During the show, “GoMo From the Show,” Mobile Messaging 2.0’s dedicated show channel, offered direct news and commentary from GoMo News’ correspondents on the floor at CTIA in Las Vegas.