SIMalliance predicts growing role in mobile services
SIMalliance board representative Olivier Leroux has urged the entire SIM industry to work even closer together to drive service revenue and boost customer loyalty for operators in a keynote speech at SIM 06 in Prague.
After announcing a solid 34 per cent rise in orders and total card sales of just under 1.2 billion in 2005, Leroux focused on the new challenge of growing average revenue per user (ARPU) and reducing subscriber acquisition costs (SAC) through customer retention in the mobile industry's mature markets. While emerging markets continued to record rapid growth in 2005 - South America registering a huge 82 per cent rise - the Asian and Western European markets delivered more sober increases of 21 per cent and 18 per cent respectively.
"In mature markets the mobile industry must boost ARPU and lower SAC to engineer growth," reported Leroux. "The SIM is perfectly placed as a management vehicle for new service development. The challenge now is to create an environment that enables operators to generate more revenues, customise and personalise handsets, deliver digital rights management, and enter new markets."
The annual SIMalliance research highlighted the trend towards higher memory cards as operators continue to add more services. Sales of 64k cards increased by over 70 per cent, while the number of 128k plus cards shipped in 2005 rocketed by over 200 per cent.
For the first time, SIMalliance members shipped more Java cards than all other card options combined to reflect the thirst for the interoperable solutions that encourage new applications and service options. Similarly S@T, the SIMalliance's wireless internet browsing solution, grew steadily to 8 per cent of total sales.
Finally Leroux highlighted the SIMalliance's ongoing work to produce workable standards that boost service delivery and management.
"Over the next year we need to turn today's thinking into tomorrow's standards. The SIMalliance is committed to pioneering open, interoperable standards across the mobile ecosystem. We will continue to knock down barriers to simple service deployment wherever it exists: on cards, handsets, networks."
Share this article with others
Post to del.icio.us
Printed from http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/news_wire/111904/SIMalliance_predicts_growing_role_in_mobile_services.html
Comment on this article
Skip to comments
We encourage users to analyse, comment on and even challenge Mobile Europe's articles, including the one above - 'SIMalliance predicts growing role in mobile services'
User reviews and comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site.
Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site.