State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

Taiwan-based High Tech Computer Corp. commonly known as HTC, has been doing some amazing things but without much fanfare. Now its getting well-deserved attention from the media and investors. Analysts are projecting HTC to be a major player in Asian handset markets. One of its star products is The Touch, which, like the iPhone, uses a touch-sensitive screen rather than dedicated buttons for many of its functions. Touch was a big profit-driver for the company last quarter. This week at CTIA, HTC Touch Dual was introduced with Windows Mobile 6.1. Later this year HTC is expected to launch Dream, an ultrathin version of Touch.

Thats not all though. HTC will be making android based phones as well. A recent WSJ article says that the buzz for Google phone may make HTC a smart stock for investors seeking growth in uncertain economic times.

HTC started in 2002 making Windows-based smart phones under contract for companies such as Palm Inc., Dell Inc, and Hewlett-Packard Co. Now, nearly 80% of its sales comes from handsets it makes in collaboration with telecom operators across the globe and under its own brand.

This month, HTC announced an alliance with Reliance Communications Ltd., India’s second-largest phone company by subscribers, to promote smart phones in that country. HTC’s CDMA handsets will be used on Reliance’s network, a move that will strengthen HTC’s foothold in one of the world’s fastest-growing phone markets.

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Here’s a peek at some of the interesting upcoming mobile phone technologies. These include next generation voice-recognition which allows you real hands-free control of phone, 3D maps, sending streaming video to cell phones, games (mobile second life), digital storage of documents for mobiles, surveillance, social applications which allow you to locate buddies using GPS and location-aware apps which provide personalized suggestions about attractions like restaurants as you’re walking around the neighborhood.

This post coincides with one of the biggest wireless event: CTIA, which opens today. Many of new mobile and wireless technologies are announced there. I’ll cover that soon.

Video courtesy of Wall Street Journal. Let me know if you are interested in the full article.

It is inevitable that more and more kids (say ages 8-16) will own a mobile phone. The very qualities which make a mobile phone very useful (personal, connected and media capable) can also make it a cause for concern for parents. How can parents know if their kids are using the phones appropriately? Previously we have talked about some issues but there’s a lot more to discuss about the generation gap, content which ends up on the phone (whether it is live content or from removable media) and the vulnerabilities to which kids can be exposed to.

Results of a recent AT&T survey revealed that 84 percent of consumers believe parental controls and safety tools are extremely or very important in keeping children safe while they use today’s entertainment and communications technologies. Nearly one-third (31 percent) of those adults do not feel that they have adequate knowledge of how to use those tools to protect children from today’s threats.

There was a recent article in New York Times about the generation gap caused by mobile phones in US. It quotes a social psychologist Sherry Turkle (a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who has studied the social impact of mobile communications) saying that these trends are likely to continue as cellphones morph into mini hand-held computers, social networking devices and pint-size movie screens. The point made by the story is that parents need to learn about how kids are using new technology. Obviously the situation varies from culture to culture but the trend is the same.

There have been attempts by a few companies to design services which allow parents control over how their kids use mobile phones and services. But there’s only so much that a parent can control and the personal nature of mobile phone makes it very difficult to monitor its usage. As many would argue, it is a social matter which should not be tried to solve using technology. However there is still a case to be made for putting controls over how the phone is used if you are the one paying the bill.

The NYT article adds: Marketers and cellphone makers are only too happy to fill the newest generation gap. Last fall, Firefly Mobile introduced the glowPhone for the preschool set; it has a small keypad with two speed-dial buttons depicting an image of a mother and a father.

Towards this AT&T has Smart Limits which allows parents to set account thresholds and to filter out content. See a flash demo here and keep in mind that it is not a complete solution by any means. Hit the link below to see details about this from AT&T website:

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I can’t tell you how many times has a dead battery disappointed me or someone I know. Despite progress in many areas of consumer electronics, there have been few battery breakthroughs recently. No wonder batteries are responsible for many of consumer frustrations with gadgets. Sounds too good to be true but take a look at this award-winning idea of a universal green battery. This eco-friendly product concept was a recent winner of the Greener Gadgets Competition in New York.

Even though buying third-party batteries is way cheaper now than before it is still a hassle. And if you don’t like the clutter of chargers with their cords, this is a great tool. Who knows if the “one battery works everywhere” concept will prove to be realistic or not as there are so many industry issues possible to its adaptation.

As with other green technologies this is not going to be cheap but I am sure it will catch on pretty fast and prices will fall once China takes over its production :)

Green Cell is a concept with a single simple idea: use safe, standardized rechargeable batteries in all portable gadgets. The environment would benefit from fewer batteries being thrown away, and you’d need fewer chargers for all your gear.

Technology often impacts society in many ways. Some times new technologies such as mobile phones come with unintended consequences. Regardless of whether you like that or not, you need to understand and deal with the change. Ignorance and avoidance is not an option.

Take Bluetooth as one example. The anonymous messaging capabilities using Bluetooth has created a new form of interaction between boys and girls in conservative Middle East. See this story from Marketplace.org’s special report from Middle East. I assume this is valid for Pakistan to some degree as well.

This is a topic with many aspects and view points will vary. However the fact remains that the youth of today have grown up with a whole new set of gadgets. The new modes of communication are part of their lifestyle. There will be applications to capture their attention, advertising to entice them. At the same time rest of the society has to adapt to this change and provide guidance to youth. The parental controls of the past will no longer work.

Jehan Ara wrote an interesting post about her successful but stressful struggle to activate her personal iPhone and then taking it to Telenor to realize that “Telenor Smart Mail did not support the iPhone”. That led me to the question which I pose to all of iPhone fans in Pakistan: which mobile company is best for iPhone users in Pakistan?

Till recently iPhone did not support the corporate email but here’s a video which shows that Apple has aggressively addressed this shortcoming and also added some other missing but highly in-demand features such as calendar, address books. Watch the game demo too. And hey, there’s the $100 million dollar fund to create some more cool apps. BlackBerry - watch out!

One of the premiere events of mobile and wireless industry, GSM annual meeting is a place to watch for trends. In the event hosted at Barcelona last month, Yahoo got the award for mobile portal, Grameenphone for social cause (note the familiar logo) and SonyEricsson got the award for mobile device. The full list of winners for 2008 can be viewed here.

Best Mobile Handset or Device
SonyEricsson: W910 Walkman Phone
3UK: 3 Skypephone - Highly Commended

Best Use of Mobile for Social & Economic Development

Grameenphone: CellBazaar

Best Mobile Game

Cellufun: Call of the Pharaoh
Glu Mobile: My Hangman

Best Broadcast Commercial
Safaricom: M-PESA ‘Send Money Home’ campaign

Best Mobile Advertising
Crossmedia Avenue: AMF Pension – the MMS campaign

Best Use of Mobile for Social & Economic Development
Grameenphone: CellBazaar

Best Network Quality Initiative
RAD Data Communications: LA-130 Cell Gateway - Cost-Effective HSPA Backhaul

Best Service Delivery Platform
Aepona: Aepona Telecom Web Services Platform

Best Billing and Customer Solution
Bharti Airtel: mChek on Airtel – Mobile Payments Service

Best Mobile Music Service
Omnifone: MusicStation

Best Mobile Video Service
mywaves

Best Mobile Social Networking Service
BuzzCity: myGamma.com

Best Mobile Infotainment Portal for News/entertainment
Yahoo! Connected Life: Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0

Best Mobile Enterprise Product or Service
Microsoft: Windows Mobile 6

Best Mobile Messaging Service
Seven: System Seven 7.0

The GSMA Chairman’s Award
Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder, Chairman & Group CEO Bharti Enterprise

Location Based Services (LBS)  are one of the hottest new emerging growth area and battlefield in North America, Europe and parts of Asia (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, among others). With the sale of personal navigation devices at an all time high and with increasing number of mobile phones with GPS capability, it will be an interesting area to watch. Some of the recent events such as Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas provided ample evidence of this.

There are many pieces of technology which make up this: better/cheaper devices, new value added services based on connected navigation devices, alternatives to GPS for location determination on the phone, CDMA vs GSM technologies and advances in mapping technologies.

Maps have come a long way in the last few years and the need for real time location-based information whether it be traffic or product inventory is acting as a catalyst. For a view of the situation of maps technology in Pakistan see this recent entry at Green&White.

Here’s a bit more on the recent industry events related to maps and navigation from TheDeal.com.

U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp. built up its arsenal in the battle against Google Earth with the acquisition Wednesday, Dec. 12, of U.K. online mapping service Multimap Ltd. for an undisclosed sum.

Microsoft’s purchase is the latest in a series of deals in the digital mapping industry. In October Nokia acquired U.S. car navigation software provider Navteq Corp. for $8.1 billion. Last month Dutch navigation device maker TomTom NV snared Tele Atlas NV, the Netherlands-based digital map maker, for $4.3 billion.

Seattle-based Microsoft said the acquisition would enhance its existing offerings such as Virtual Earth and offer future integration potential for a range of other services and platforms.

As more and more cellular phone makers incorporate the technology into their handsets, demand for digital navigation devices is expected to explode. California research group iSuppli Corp. valued the market at about $4 billion in 2006 and projects $16.5 billion in revenue by 2013.

BusinessWeek Story. In Pakistan Nokia has the number 1 spot and Samsung faces strong competition. Motorola does not have a chance against Samsung and other Asian handset makers!

With Motorola (MOT) struggling for more than a year, Samsung overtook its American rival in 2007 to become the world’s second-largest handset maker [BusinessWeek.com, 11/30/07] after Nokia. Its global market share is up about three percentage points from last year, at 14.5% in the third quarter, compared with Motorola’s 13.1%. And for every quarter this year, Samsung set a new sales record, with the 115 million phones sold in the January-September period exceeding the 114 million sold during all of last year.

Samsung believes its record-breaking run is just beginning. This year, its sales are expected to top 160 million phones, up 40% from last year, and executives are confident the pace of its growth will be about double that of the rest of the industry next year, when they expect sales of 200 million. “The growth momentum is accelerating, and there’s no reversal in the trend,” says Samsung’s Executive Vice-President Chu Woo Sik.

Building on Cheap Handsets

The big question is whether Motorola can rebound and stop Samsung. New Motorola chief Greg Brown, who was chief operating officer before being named CEO last month, has spent the past few months tackling the company’s problems to try and restore the glory it had just after the Razr’s sensational debut in 2004. “Samsung will face challenges,” says mobile communications analyst Tina Teng at market researcher iSuppli.

Samsung’s top brass believe the company’s recent run is sustainable. That’s because Choi Gee Sung, a marketing expert who took over as Samsung’s telecom chief in January, has targeted the fast-growing market for cheap handsets, which wasn’t a priority for his predecessor, Lee Ki Tae, a former engineer.

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 There are many attempts going on “create your own phone” idea. Here’s one from US startup BugLabs (cool logo I must say). I saw it featured at Springwise. Click here to read the full story.

Would-be product designers start with Bug Labs’ basic module—in essence, a Linux-based mobile computer. Then, they add other modules to give the basic device fresh capabilities. Want a camera that tags photos with a GPS-derived location and then uploads them to the web? All it takes is fitting the necessary components together. The software to run the device is also modular, though customizing it may require some minor coding. Bug Labs aims to start selling both the basic module and the first four add-ons (GPS, digital camera/videocam, colour LCD touchscreen and an accelerometer/motion sensor) by the end of 2007.

I need to watch this and try it out, so please remind me if you don’t see an update on this after a few weeks!

This is related to the series about linux and mobile devices / phones. I believe 2008 will be the year when linux for mobile devices will hit big, partly thanks to android. But Linux has some formidable challenges. This post takes a look at one of them - Symbian (48% owned by Nokia), which is one of the top OS makers for smart phones.

As many know, phones based on Nokia S60 uses Symbian’s proprietary operating system. Nokia N82 is the latest phone (more of a gadget actually because of its slick camera) which is based on S60 and Symbian. Symbian is also behind Motorola (MOT) Z8 slider. The user interface of Z8 was positively reviewed by bloggers. Some of the improvements are attributed to a recent upgrade of the OS by the company.

The graphic above shows the market share of smart phone operating system (source: GigaOm) by various region. Overall Symbian is in high gears and ready to take on its competitors.

Recently Symbian posted good results with 56% year-on-year rise in third-quarter product shipments to device manufacturers and said that its revenue had increased by 30% in the same period.

Symbian’s technology has now shipped in 165 million devices. However, average royalties per unit dropped in the period to $4.8 per unit from $5.2 per unit a year ago.

Symbian reported that shipments of its operating system were up to 20.4 million units, from 13 million units a year earlier, in the three months ended Sept. 30, while revenue increased to GBP52.4 million from GBP40.3 million.

After months of speculation there is an official statement from Google about their mobile phone plans. However the information on the Google mobile phone software stack (which is based on Android platform) lacks many details and the product release time frame of second half of 2008 is long. In the coming days analysts will discuss this a lot so I’ll spare you detailed comments but here’re a few things which come to mind.

The software will run on special handsets from a wide range of partners. Based on what I’ve read the phone will be more of a smart phone with easier and faster access to internet and productivity applications leading to the mashups which created waves for the Internet.  There’s no limit to which the new apps can go but I think speech apps (such as those from Nuance) are going to be a big part here.

The Open Handset Alliance and Open source support is important here. there has been a good momentum going for the open-source linux phone and the google phone announcement will help it a great deal. Countries like Pakistan are embracing linux and open-source and there is potential for some interesting work. However it is not yet clear if the LIMO efforts will converge with this or not. For developers the long lead time is a bit long but being google it is the hope that the wait will be worth it. It may be worth noting here that Apple has also announced opening its iPhone to outside developers.

As opposed to Apple’s iPhone pricey brand the google phone strategy is to create a platform which is widely scalable and seen as the rescuer, the common man’s phone. In that sense it will attract tremendous attention in developing countries. If you look at the partners HTC is the among the first handset maker to come out with an android based device. Large international carriers such as China Mobile are listed as partners as well.

Addendum on Nov 12: See the video about Android and the $10 million prize. Code is here.

The google blog said:

If you’re a developer and this approach sounds exciting, give us a week or so and we’ll have an SDK available.

Through deep partnerships with carriers, device manufacturers, developers, and others, we hope to enable an open ecosystem for the mobile world by creating a standard, open mobile software platform. We think the result will ultimately be a better and faster pace for innovation that will give mobile customers unforeseen applications and capabilities.