The Mobile Services Market

We used to spend a lot of effort evangelizing mobile services, but no longer. There are more than 2.8 Billion mobile subscribers worldwide as of mid 2007. According to market researchers, there will be 4 Billion subscribers by 2010.

At the same time that the subscriber populations are growing, Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) is declining for mobile operators everywhere. The only solution for both operators and other service providers is to deliver new mobile services that have value beyond voice and text messaging. (Read more on the dramatic shift in the market at Shift Happens.)

This is the market in which we so passionately believe: the Mobile Internet. We work with companies that are bringing new technologies, products, services and business-models to the mobile market space. And while the term is over used, we do see tremendous synergies between Web 2.0 and the Mobile Internet: social networks need to have both "big glass" and mobile presence; travel services need to be 10x more mobile than the current offerings; and financial services need highly secure, robust and always-on mobile access points.

Look at it this way - there will be 4 Billion mobile subscribers by 2010. If we can't turn this market into real revenue and great margins, we need to all go back to the jobs when we were teenagers.