Portio Research has released its market study, Strategies for Creating End-user Demand for Mobile Data Services. As mobile operators worldwide face increasing pressure on profitability, so revenues from data services become increasingly important, says Portio. Voice revenues continue to fall, growth has slowed in mature markets, and the long-awaited launch of 3G services has failed to save ARPU figures from their slow decline.
Over the last three or four years, mobile network operators have been focusing much of their attention on driving the all-important data-as-a-percentage-of-revenue metric. In highly competitive markets, voice revenues are being squeezed harder than ever, churn is a constant problem and most operators are pushing non-voice service revenues as the saviour of ARPU.
The report takes an in-depth look at a range of non-voice services to understand the strategies employed by those mobile operators leading the field in each major non-voice service category. The report looks at best-of-breed non-voice services around the globe and identifies areas of best practice in driving higher usage from mobile data services.
The report considers mobile portals, mobile music downloads, mobile video downloads and uploads, ringback tones, mobile commerce, mobile games and mobile video calling, as well as SMS and MMS. Theres also a section looking at Web 2.0
It includes market-leading examples in each service category, and analyses the strategies employed in each case to uncover the underlying best practice driving service adoption and winning market share.
The report looks at market conditions across a range of country markets in Asia, Europe and the Americas, with examples taken from Japan, the UK, the US, South Korea, China, India, the Philippines, Malaysia, Norway and France.
It examines the strategies operators have employed to become industry leaders, how services have been best adapted to suit local market conditions and how applications and services have been marketed to best effect.
Portia says the report has been written to act as a best practice guide to the mobile data services industry, helping to identify best-of-breed services in each service category and identifying which mobile operators lead the field, and what they do differently that helps them stay out in front, ahead of the competition.
The report offers recommendations for mobile operators, applications developers and handset vendors, helping them to formulate winning strategies for mobile services and applications. Operators covered in the report include O2 UK, Vodafone UK, 3UK, NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, Telenor Norway, Verizon Wireless and KTF Korea.
Portia says the report is invaluable reading for network operators, MVNOs and service providers, for content, applications and software developers, for brand owners,  handset vendors and hardware manufacturers, and for consultants, bankers and venture capitalists.
The 160-page report costs  1,495 for a 1-5 user PDF team licence,
1,995 for a small or medium-size PDF company licence, or 2,995 for a
large, corporate PDF unlimited licence.
More details, including a brochure and detailed Table Of Contents, here.