Think mass mobile, think Asia

I just attended a conference on Saturday and Scott Rafer spoke on “Market Opportunity, Not Magic.” (His slides are available on slideshare here.) His main takeaway was that “size matters,” meaning that the market size in which you want to succeed needs to have enough numbers to give anyone a sustainable revenue per head. It convinced us more and more that in Asia the mobile market represents more than just blue oceans, it is the blue ocean. Asia makes up 40 percent of the global mobile market which is 21 percent more than Latin and North America combined, yet the ad spend in this region is so minuscule, it’s hard to even find the numbers.

China alone possesses 618 million mobile handsets which, as a single market, is a staggering number. Compare that to India, where about 500 million users are expected by 2012. We know the mass and the market are here, so what’s stopping mobile from taking off in a big way? Instead of posting yet another 10 reasons why we aren’t nearly there yet, let’s look at some good initiatives happening in and around Asia to get a feel for where we’re going. We’ll be spreading these over the next couple of weeks in what we hope will be an enlightening series of case studies.

Today’s spotlight is on Vietnamese mobile operator Viettel Telecom who announced a SIM card that is targeted directly at tourists in Vietnam. The aim of this service is to provide tourists with all the information they need during their time in the country. From hotel to transportation to weather news, all of these useful facts are available via the prepaid SIM card’s services.

Utility SIM cards that come pre-packed or linked with services is a great idea. In many developing nations within Asia, prepaid SIM cards outnumber postpaid SIM cards and so utility SIM cards make a lot of sense. Imagine the usefulness of pre-packed data such as applications or pre-saved RSS/mobile internet links easily. Taking this idea to countries dependent on prepaid SIM cards such as Philippines and Indonesia, we can start thinking about native branded utilities that give real meaning to the long tail.

When it comes to issues such as fragmentation and adoption of service, mass can be a double-edged sword. But as we make great strides in technology and user behavior, the only certainty is that the numbers will continue to swell and push the mobile agenda deeper into marketing proposals. It’s not just mobile as a medium that marketers need to consider, it’s also mobile as a mass.

Song of the blog

"Break me out" by the Rescues