Now that 2010 is in it’s 2nd month, I have decided to put on my pointy hair, wave my wand while staring into my fog filled crystal ball and give my predictions for 2010 and the mobile space. Bear with me a while as this could take some time.
1) Rise of the mobile web – If Apple heralded the rise of the mobile app store in USA. Then 2010 will see the rise of the mobile app spearheaded by Google’s Android. With Flash(Not Flash Lite) support for Android 2.0 coming and a whole bunch of Android phones appearing in 2010. 2010 will be the year of the mobile web. Following behind will be Windows Mobile Series 7 and Silverlight support. I definitely will expect some teething issues, but that is to be expected, plus I can’t wait to check out Flash apps on those cool phones.
2) People realise App Stores are overrated – 24 telco operators have decided to band together and create their own App Store to counter Apple’s App Store. Samsung’s new Bada mobile OS also will come with their own App Store and Sony Ericsson is also following suit. App stores are nothing new since I have experienced it years ago(in my own Sony Ericsson phone) when the iPhone was not even released yet and the hype is amazing. What was throughly groundbreaking about Apple’s App Store was
- the 30/70 revenue share when 50/50 was the norm
- standardizing the hardware and form factor of the devices that can connect to the App Store. Previously, App Stores supported so many devices and form factors that if you didn’t know what phone model you were using and download the wrong version. Tough luck to you then.
When consumers realize that the mobile web can fulfill a lot of what they originally wanted in a mobile app. Then mobile apps will find it a challenge to compete against their mobile brethen.
3) The mobile OS space will get even more crowded – After the recent MWC(Mobile World Congress) in Barcelona. 2 companies unveiled their new mobile OSes and those 2 are Microsoft with Windows Mobile Series 7 and Samsung with Bada. Then Nokia also decided to partner with Intel to create a new OS based on Nokia’s Maemo and call it MeeGo. So this makes the already crowded mobile OS space even more crowded. I can’t complain about that since I believe a monopoly is not good for consumers.
4) Mobile games will be huge – Sony just announced that it will included their PSN(PlayStation Network) and obviously, this announcement is fired in the direction of Microsoft which also made known that their Windows Mobile Series 7 phones will have XBox Live integration. This is great news for gamers and game developers alike as I can’t wait to see the new games available on these phones. Maybe Sony will make their Sony Ericsson phones into a PSP-Phone? Or Nokia will resurrect N-Gage to be N-Gage 3.0? N-Gage had promise, but how Nokia screwed it up makes for another blog post later.
5) Freemium goes mobile – When people think freemium games, they think of Farmville, Facebook apps etc. But the freemium monetization model was already established in my part of the world, here in Singapore, years ago when Zynga was non-existent and Facebook was still trying to gain traction in USA. The master of monetization then was Nexon who did an excellent job of freemium monetization through their games such as Maple Story, Audition Online, Kart Rider etc. Although Zynga may be the master of monetization now, at least Nexon wasn’t associated with Scamville. Even Ngmoco is doing it with their game “Eliminate” and Aurora Feint is offering a freemium monetization model through their Open Feint X platform. But for featurephones without all these fancy features, there is still the premium SMS monetization model and every phone can send a SMS.
6) Smartphones becomes widespread – With the cost of chipsets dropping and news that companies such as Microsoft joining forces with MediaTek to develop cheaper smartphones aimed at China and the emerging markets. Smartphones will soon be the new feature phones once these smartphones have dropped to a comfortable price level and more people can afford it. So emerging markets in places such as China, India, South Africa, and closer to home, Vietnam, Cambodia etc, these countries will be where cheaper smartphones will displace feature phones.
Well, that sums up my predictions for mobile in 2010, and I may be wrong on all of these points, so anyone has any comments. Feel free to post it.