Several leading operators spoken to by Forrester said they expect to reap rewards from generous revenue-sharing deals, advertising and increased subscription fees. It says that US carriers like Sprint and BellSouth are squeezing retailers such as Amazon.com and Ticketmaster for generous revenue-sharing deals.
Last year, all carrier revenue came from subscriptions. In 2002, carriers told Forrester that they expect 28% of revenue from m-commerce and 3% from mobile advertising. Forrester disagrees.
Forrester predicts that m-commerce will see only small transactions - and relatively
few of them. Its report says, “Even if carriers are willing to bet on mobile e-Commerce, the number of parties demanding a piece of mobile transactions -carrier, aggregator, content/commerce provider - makes for slim revenue pickings for operators.”
It adds, “while purchasing with a mobile phone will be at least as secure as tethered internet shopping, all bets are off when the handset is left on a bus.”
The report suggests privacy concerns will also kill mobile advertising and users will simply reject mobile spam.
The recommendations for operators include increasing penetration of mobile use in the population (the report is from the US where penetration is much lower than in Europe), improving “the mobile experience” while keeping it simple, and innovating instead of slashing prices. Concluding comments in the report suggest that: