Juniper Research: Mobile Content Tops Agenda at 2010 Mobile World Congress

Despite the absence of Apple’s App store, mobile content has been on top of the agenda at 2010 Mobile World Congress (News - Alert) in Barcelona, held this week, according to a report published by Juniper Research.

 

The report said that the announcements made at the mobile event give something away about the content strategies of the organisations involved.

 

At the 2010 Mobile World Congress, Samsung, Sony Ericsson (News - Alert), ZTE, Motorola Acer and several others companies introduced smartphones. Juniper Research predicts that this will “dramatically” increase competition in the Smartphone space.

 

In the Apps market, 24 mobile operators have come together to launch a “Wholesale Applications Community.” These operators include AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica (News - Alert), Sprint and Verizon Wireless. Juniper Research believes that this should allow the download of mobile Internet and applications without the potential headache of conflicting technologies.

 

The report says that the advent of LTE may also open the door for operators to tier their levels of service for content carriage and charge accordingly. The LTE now has several live roll-outs and as many as 75 build-out commitments. At present, around 40 mobile industry organisations have backed industry association GSMA’s initiative to standardise the delivery of voice and messaging services for LTE, Juniper Research (News - Alert) report said.

 

Moreover, the SIM based mobile payments trial by the GSMA, Samsung, Telefonica, and several other partners can start a new era in the development of mobile payments using Near Field Communications (NFC) technology could due to, according to the report.

 

The report expects that the trial will raise awareness about the technology. And, the commercial launch of NFC handsets will drive NFC’s adoption as well as reconcile the interests of the various stakeholders in NFC, including mobile operator and payment facilitator.

 

Seeing the number of mobile handsets introduced at the 2010 Mobile World Congress that featured Google’s Android platform, the report states that there has been a proliferation of mobile handsets using Google’s Android platform. Alcatel, Dell, HTC, LG, Motorola, Samsung (News - Alert), Sony Ericsson and ZTE announced devices that are equipped with Google’s Android platform.