2007 Predictions Reviewed

Thomas Husson | December 21, 2007, 10:30 AM

Russell at MobHappy said "even professional analysts aren’t that brave (to review their predictions) as they need their clients to generally believe that they’re right all the time and so to admit to fallibility would be shooting themselves in the foot".

I don't think it is really the case for a couple of reasons:
- posts and comments are available to anyone and we even let know when our predictions go wrong.
- the more transparent we are, the better because at the end of the day, clients ask us about our assumptions and compare that with their own forecast and revenue figures

Anyway, let's be brave and review my 2007 predictions. However, I have to admit I am not that brave since it was my own personal view (at Jupiter we have a collaborative approach so nothing is official until challenged by opinionated fellow colleagues and data-checked by different people...) and since I was only highlighting 5 key trends and not precise predictions.

1) "Consolidation will continue across all the value chain and new players will come into the market"
This was an easy one and there are numerous examples:

- "particularly in mobile marketing": 3rd Screen, Enpocket, Flytxt, ScreenTonic, PhoneValley, Actionality...

- among mobile operators: Vodafone in India, France Telecom in Africa but also in Europe with T-Mobile/Orange in the Netherlands, Orange/One and Telekom Austria/Tele 2 in Austria, TeliaSonera/Debitel in Denmark...not to mention the fixed-mobile deals with Tele2 fixed business, yesterday's SFR/Neuf deal in France or Swisscom/Fastweb...but 3 was not acquired (only shared its network with T-Mobile)...well not yet

- MVNOs continued to expand particularly retailers (ASDA, Carrefour, Auchan,...) and "particularly in Italy" (CoopVoce, PosteMobile, Tiscali, Fastweb to name a few)

- not really the case for handset manufacturers. I was wrong about Sagem, who finally made a strategic deal (licensing and ODM agreement) with Sony Ericsson.

- new entrants: Apple's iPhone, Google's android and spectrum bid, Blyk are probably the most discussed topics in 2007.

2) "3G will start moving from a niche audience to the critical mass stage"

- That's the case on average in Europe.

- HSDPA is likely to take off more quickly than I thought thanks to heavier subsidies from operators (see Illimythics) or via USB / modems (amazingly 3G USB is N1 Sales in Telia Stores). The N95 sold very well (more than 1M phones to date in the UK alone) or the LG Viewty (310,000 sales since launch in Europe).

3) "Hype around mobile advertising, UGC and mobile 2.0 will continue with a mobile MySpace, Wikipedia and many more announcements"

- MySpace initially launched on an exclusive (paying) basis with Vodafone to finally open to an ad-funded version
- Wikepedia is heavily promoted (one the top 3 icons on Orange World portal in France)
- Bebo launched with Orange in the UK and with o2 in Ireland
- and I have some good reasons to continue to believe the market is overhyped: see here and here.

4) "Strong growth in mobile entertainment but won't mean much in absolute figures"

- I have to admit I was expecting a maturation in the ringtone business but not the decline several players have encountered...I also have to admit our RBT figures were too high. Initial uptake in 2006 was good in selected Southern European countries (Spain, Italy, Greece) and I thought it would have been more promoted by off-portal third party players since there are no data fees to download the content. Nothing really happened in 2007 though

- however, with the emergence of games, video, chat, IM, music, I think personalization is now well on its track to be <50% of revenues !

- Some countries did all they could to launch a mobile broadcasting solution but most of them had to postpone (France is a good example). Finland launched but later than expected and on a very limited basis. It did not drive any significant use: see facts here.

5) "Many new innovative applications will be launched and highlight the potential of mobile phones in the future"

I was wrong in expecting a first NFC commercial launch (still many trials) but this is only a question of months. RSS feeds, widgets and small applications did flourish with Widsets, Webwag, Netvibes & co...but in absolute numbers, they did not gain any significant adoption!

As I said, easier to predict key trends than precise facts. Will do my best to be more precise for 2008. This will be my first post next year...

In the meantime, let me wish you a nice festive season. I will personally hibernate until January 2nd.