A Saturated Market?
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A spokesperson for Slovenia's smallest mobile operator, Vega, recently said: "The Slovenian mobile telecommunications market is practically saturated - the growth for any operator today in terms of numbers of subscribers comes from the churn from other operators as well as from new users, who are younger and younger and entering the market for the first time. The pie is no longer getting bigger, but the slices of market share are shifting slightly. The largest part of today's consumer demand comes from voice and text messaging (SMS) as well as from a growing segment of multimedia services such as sending pictures taken with the handset and downloading ring tones and logos. Service providers will increasingly segment their target customers, creating a price / content proposition that meets their needs and behaviour. As the growth in revenues from voice and basic data services flattens out over the years, an increasing share of future income for mobile operators will come from additional services that will be available with faster access to Internet offerings. However, one of the main barriers in the growth of many of these new services is the complexity of the many technologies and protocols involved for the consumer. After all, the success of SMS comes from its low cost and especially its universal adoption across networks and handsets. The winner in this market will be the operator who communicates and facilitates these services the best." The penetration of mobile telephony in Slovenia is 80.1% according to the second largest operator, SiMobil. There is, however, still a lot of space to manoeuvre, especially in the area of new technologies and mobile devices. The main trend in the mobile phone industry is currently data transfer and mobile content. SiMobil: "New technologies such as EDGE, UMTS, Wimax, etc. are enabling increasingly faster transfers, so operators are actively preparing new services and content. The steady revenue growth from data services is confirmation of that." Debitel, the nation's third largest mobile operator, believes that the faster transfer rates will mean that videoconferencing and Internet browsing will also be good money-spinners in the future. Diversity and convergence Mobitel, the largest mobile operator in Slovenia, is not convinced that the Slovenian mobile telecommunications market is saturated. There are constantly new services presented in the market and mobile telecommunications usage is spreading into areas such as mobile portals, mobile television, mobile office, telemetry and other advanced services. We have seen the development of mobile telecommunications from the first generation analog networks, through the second generation GSM networks, to the third generation UMTS, EDGE and Wimax technologies. You can use video telephony with UMTS and the faster data transfer rates (up to 384 Kbit/s). What about the future? Mobitel: "Diverse content and mobile terminals, with special emphasize on the convergence of technology and media. We are studying the technological development of mobile telecommunications systems such as DVB-H, DVB-T, HSDPA and others. We can expect further development in the direction of mobile TV as well as broadband access to the Internet." The services of the future? The most important thing for the majority of mobile telecommunications users is quality and reliability. Mobile devices are turning into small, mobile computers nowadays, and users are constantly informed and accessible. We can do so much more with our mobile phones than just have everyday conversations: we can view, send and receive pictures, watch videos and TV, take photos, listen to music and many other things. Mobitel's multimedia portal Planet offers different content and services in the shape of text, pictures, sound and video. With a service called Uvertura (Overture), a Mobitel innovation, users can arrange their own music or sound effects into a ring tone. Of course, it is not free of charge. Another service, called Moneta, allows users to pay for content, services and products with mobile phones. They can buy or make a reservation for cinema tickets and use mobile banking to settle accounts. Mobitel also offers GPS-style location-navigation services such as Kje sem? (Where am I?), Smerokaz (Waypost) and Mobinavigator making orientation easier. The NeoWLAN network for wireless broadband access to the Internet is becoming very popular. Mobitel also offers a service called Integral, which enables users to connect to company information systems regardless of location. With a mobile phone or PDA users can access their e-mail, calendar, attachments, etc. The mobile office is very important for business users especially having access to a continuous connection for voice communications; the sending, receiving, reading and saving of SMS and MMS messages; videoconferencing; faxing; accessing e-mails, local area networks and/or the Internet; data exchange; etc. The MVNO's are coming The popularity of Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) is also growing. MVNO's are operators who are guests in someone else's network. For instance, Debitel, the largest and oldest MVNO in Slovenia, is a guest in Mobitel's network. Voljamobil is another one: "MVNO is increasingly popular because it is a cheap, easy and effective way to offer a complete range of services. Retailers, Internet service providers, advertisers and others can use an MVNO service for mobile advertising, keeping their customers and other target groups abreast of their latest offerings, etc." It is no small wonder that some of the biggest Slovenian retailers - Mercator, Petrol and Tus - are evaluating the MVNO market.