Thursday, January 26, 2006

Billion Dollar Market for On-Device Portals

"London, (PRWED) January 25, 2006 -- The industry is witnessing the adoption of On-Device Portals (ODPs), a new generation of products which deliver content on the mobile phone through the use of a software client application. Orange Downloads, Vodafone Live Cast, DoCoMo i-Channel, Sprint Nextel On-Demand and O2's planned deployment of Qualcomm uiOne, are some notable cases of on-device portal deployments which have already taken place worldwide. According to a recently published report from wireless research and consulting firm, ARCchart, the ODP market is now poised for aggressive growth and is forecast to reach a value of $1.4 billion by 2009.

Mobile operators will initially lead ODP deployments but eventually media companies will dominate.On-device portals are an evolution of WAP, as they leverage the handset's capabilities to deliver a more compelling user experience, increase service awareness and streamline content purchasing. ARCchart classifies these products into three categories: offline portals, on-device store-fronts and home-screen replacement products. ODPs have emerged to address the poor take-up of mobile data services. Operators have spent billions of dollars on next generation networks and on sourcing content from media brands.

However, non-messaging data revenue is still low: for a successful operator like Vodafone UK, the increase in pure data revenue generated between 2004 and 2005 is estimated at just $88 million." Full report