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M-COMMERCE – 2 TIMES THE
VALUE OF E-COMMERCE
Do you know what M –
Commerce is?
If the answer is no, you
need to buckle up and learn quickly. In
the year 2006, M-Commerce accounted for
about 7.4 billion Euros in Europe, which
is second to Asia. This is two times the
amount spent for web services.
M – Commerce is simple,
mobile phone based sales, generally
relating to ringtones, wallpaper, games,
etc. However, there are lots more to M –
Commerce than just this.
Why is there so much
excitement about M – Commerce? The
excitement is due the fact that M –
Commerce has more potential than E –
Commerce because more individuals have
mobile phones than computers. Also,
people are more comfortable using phones
than computers.
Growth in the mobile
industry already exceeds all other
industries related to communication.
More than half of the Americans have
mobile phones. In UK, the ownership
ratio is as high as 1.5 mobile phones
per head. In 2008, the mobile industry
or M – Commerce was worth about $121
billion. Distribution of games, images,
ringtones and several other promotions
were responsible for 1/5th of
this revenue.
With newer and more
sophisticated technologies coming up
these devices are being used as PDF
readers, diary organisers, picture
albums, voice notepads, game consoles,
MP3 Players and cameras.
The mobile phones can
also connect to the home wireless
networks and can be used to check mails,
browse the net and much other stuff on
the internet.
In M – Commerce the real
money exists in SMS, MMS and micro
payments.
Recent reports have
revealed a doubling of revenues, world
wide, due to streaming sports bulletin
and TV subscriptions.
Micro Payments has been
around for some time now. The best
example is voting by viewers while
watching shows on TV. Each time a viewer
votes using his or her mobile phone,
they are charged a small amount.
Millions of such small amounts will add
to billions of dollars per TV show. This
is micro payments.
This method is very
fascinating because people don’t feel
that they have spent any money since
they don’t have to take out their credit
card and swipe. It’s much simpler:
usually sending a text message to a
number and then a small payment is added
to the phone bill.
All the payments will
appear in the following month’s phone
bill summary. People are very
comfortable in making payments in this
way. The same method is used for voting,
participating in a game show,
downloading a game or to download the
latest ringtone.
If you are planning to
enter the M – Commerce industry, you
have to plan to make use of micro
payments in your web site. For example,
if you have an online newsletter, you
could offer to deliver it to your
customer’s mobile phones if they are
willing to pay a small fee. You could
give it for free to the existing
customers for a trial period.
You can also offer a
“breaking news” service where your
customers will be able to receive real
time news. |
