Wireless Solutions. Working. US Wireless Data Market. Strategy, Business Development and Marketing for Wireless Businesses. Enterprise Segment

Transcription

1 Working Wireless Solutions Strategy, Business Development and Marketing for Wireless Businesses US Wireless Data Market Enterprise Segment April 2003 Written by Derek Kerton and Hu Bin THE KERTON GROUP The KERTON Group 1970 Mazey Street Milpitas, CA USA Tel Fax [email protected]

2 Table of Contents 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THE US WIRELESS AND MOBILE DATA MARKETS BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY TRENDS MAJOR PLAYERS DEVELOPMENTS THREATS AT&T WIRELESS AT A GLANCE NETWORK BUSINESS PERFORMANCE ENTERPRISE STRATEGY (DATA) PARTNERSHIPS & ALLIANCES ISSUES LOOKING AHEAD CINGULAR AT A GLANCE NETWORK BUSINESS PERFORMANCE ENTERPRISE STRATEGY (DATA) PARTNERSHIPS & ALLIANCES ISSUES LOOKING AHEAD NEXTEL AT A GLANCE NETWORK BUSINESS PERFORMANCE ENTERPRISE STRATEGY (DATA) PARTNERSHIPS & ALLIANCES ISSUES LOOKING AHEAD SPRINT PCS... 30

3 6.1. AT A GLANCE NETWORK BUSINESS PERFORMANCE ENTERPRISE STRATEGY (DATA) PARTNERSHIPS & ALLIANCES ISSUES LOOKING AHEAD T-MOBILE AT A GLANCE NETWORK BUSINESS PERFORMANCE ENTERPRISE STRATEGY (DATA) PARTNERSHIPS & ALLIANCES ISSUES LOOKING AHEAD VERIZON WIRELESS AT A GLANCE NETWORK BUSINESS PERFORMANCE ENTERPRISE STRATEGY (DATA) PARTNERSHIPS & ALLIANCES ISSUES LOOKING AHEAD ADDENDA OTHER CARRIERS THE CANADIAN MARKET METHODOLOGY CTIA PRIMARY RESEARCH ABOUT THE KERTON GROUP EXHIBIT A: RAW DATA EXHIBIT B: MARKETING COLLATERAL SAMPLES Page 1

4 1. Executive Summary Today, the US wireless telecommunications industry is not in good health. Despite a high industry ARPU of US$52, only two of six wireless carriers made money last year. Expensive network upgrades and brisk competition has hurt the bottom line. After five years of impressive growth, market growth dipped below 50% in Despite that, there are opportunities on the horizon. Wireless data and market segmentation are two ways the industry can offset the slump. Wireless data has the opportunity to be a lesscommoditized service that carriers can offer, which will boost ARPU, and segmentation is a way carriers can increase penetration into individual segments while also reducing churn. Naturally, the carriers are trying to identify, target, and capture the most lucrative market segments first. Business users are the obvious first target. Of the 145 million wireless subscribers in the US market, 55 million are business users. Business users consume twice as much data as non-business, and according to Telephia, a Telecom industry research firm, enterprise users yield 45% higher ARPU. Cahners/InStat believes that business wireless data revenues will grow from $4 billion in 2001 to $16 billion in Carriers also believe that data services will drive ARPU and increase loyalty. In 2002, the industry saw races to launch high-speed data networks, though more was accomplished in marketing spin than in infrastructure. Because CDMA carriers can make relatively cheap upgrades that support higher data-rates than similar GSM upgrades the CDMA carriers are leveraging their technological advantages to win data customers. They are expected to further exploit this advantage by offering higher maximum speeds, and lower cost per MB, and marketing the advantage accordingly. However, mobile data success is not only based on speed. The history of providing mobile data to businesses in the US is one of slow CDPD, ARDIS (Motient), and Mobitex networks. For over a decade, these cellular-type networks have provided low-latency vertical data applications, connectivity for mobile professionals, and telemetry solutions at up to 19.2 kbps. While Cingular and Motient will continues to support their low-cost and low-latency Mobitex and Motient networks, the two CDPD carriers, Verizon and AT&T Wireless, will shut down CDPD networks and migrate subscribers to 2.5G packet data networks. GSM carriers should take special note of how the Motient and Mobitex networks have been successful, even with low speeds. The success of these networks holds the keys to success with relatively low speeds. Machine-to-machine and telemetry solutions are examples of applications that can thrive in low-speed environments, so long as network reliability is high. Many carriers are looking to capture a share of the machine-to-machine market, since their new packetized networks allow them to compete in this segment. Although many customers are satisfied with their current solutions (Mobitex, CDPD, Motient), some of these customers may desire higher speed, and this is an opportunity to offer them services on GPRS and 1xRTT networks. Additionally, CDPD networks will be phased out by 2005, releasing those customers to choose a replacement. The decreasing cost of chips and radios is increasing the size of the market any vending machine, gas meter, electric meter, etc. can be a wireless station, but with low total volume of data per station. Therefore, machine-to-machine will become a volume business where it takes many stations to scale to profitability. Corporate purchasing managers and individual business purchasers have traditionally made their cellular service provider decision based primarily on commoditized voice services. A group of data services, , Internet connectivity, and VPN, are starting to enter into purchasing decisions, but every wireless carrier researched in this report offers these undifferentiated horizontal wireless data applications. As mobile data becomes an increasingly important part of the purchase decision, the decision power is being shifted to CIOs and IT departments, where factors other than price are being considered. For this reason, the importance of customized solutions, security, and system integration is becoming greater. Customized solutions will be the winning aspect of enterprise sales. This is the case because off-the-shelf horizontal solutions are non-differentiated, and offered by all the carriers. To win a customer, carriers need to meet their specific needs. The good aspect of this is that it will result in increased loyalty, and higher

5 profitability. The best way to offer customized solutions is through mass-customization, or using modular solutions in unique combinations, and tailoring them slightly for each customer. For the tailoring part, carriers should partner with SI and consulting firms. Not only are SIs familiar with this kind of work, but they have sales channels and relationships with enterprise customers. Carriers should partner with large SIs for high-value customers, but also strive to partner with small niche SIs, who will help the carrier attack and dominate very specific, narrow vertical niches. This strategy has proven successful for Nextel. Many carriers made a move in the past year to focus on the enterprise segment; Cingular and Verizon both reorganized their sales departments to add enterprise sales, but these are just the beginnings of a true segmentation strategy. The only truly segmented carrier is Nextel, who has been remarkably successful in the enterprise earning Nextel the highest ARPU in the industry at $69. Nextel has always been entirely focused on the enterprise segment from their products and services to their support and channels. Nextel is definitely the success story of US wireless, and wireless data. Nextel has always made independent decisions: from selecting the iden technology, to upgrading their analog spectrum to digital instead of buying new spectrum, to using a segmentation strategy when every other carrier was going after mass market. In fact, Nextel has executed a textbook-perfect market segmentation strategy. Starting with blue-collar business customers, the PTT walkie-talkie feature that their digital network enabled quickly won them the segment, and they expanded segment by segment since then. With an all-digital network Nextel had an early advantage over other circuit-switched cellular carriers with respect to wireless data. Nextel added to that advantage by building and training the best sales force in the industry, and by staffing their sales and marketing teams with industry experts from the vertical markets they served. Today, a full third of their business customers run data applications, and they have 2 million data subscribers. This segment is extremely valuable, providing $98 ARPU for these users. Nextel s strategy has resulted in increased loyalty and customer satisfaction. Although many carriers will try to catch Nextel by introducing Push-To-Talk over the next year, few will succeed. Nextel s PTT solution has the lowest latency, and appears as a real-time walkie-talkie. Other solutions have proven to have significant latency, and as such will not threaten Nextel s PTT dominance. PTT will, however, be a nice addition for subscribers who will use it as a sort of voice messaging. ARPU is likely to rise as a result, but PTT will still only be a differentiator for Nextel. With respect to WLAN, all but one carrier has decided not to build-out its own network. T-Mobile is the one breaking from the pack by offering hotspots in Starbuck s coffee shops, Borders book stores, hotels, airport lounges, and other locations. While this may be an advantage for T-Mobile since it is a huge differentiator (almost all of their WiFi customers are new T-Mobile customers), it may prove to be a lossleader. No one has proven the economic model of Public WLAN access as profitable. The other wireless carriers all seem content to partner with aggregators and hotspot providers to offer the service to their customers either in OEM fashion, or with the partner brand. Consolidate billing will be the first enhancement to emerge this year, and WWAN PWLAN roaming may emerge after. The wireline carriers may behave differently than their wireless brethren. AT&T (wireline) has invested in Cometa, which will build-out hotspots. The Kerton Group sees WiFi as complementary to WWAN, since it is training customers to use mobile data, and will never match the footprint of the cellular networks. Overall, data has the opportunity to improve ARPU for carriers if they can prevent commoditization through the creation of differentiated, verticalized services. US carriers should refrain from competing on price, and strive to compete on other criterion like quality, support, and services. Page 2