Rapid Market Growth
Digital content purchases (ringtones, videos, music, games) will exceed $11.5 Billion by 2009 (Tower Group). Yet Telcos are not getting their fair share of these sales. As Vodafone and Orange in the UK report, 70% of content passing through their networks is not purchased through their portal (i.e., off-portal or third party). In addition, landline Telcos and ISPs are desperate to participate in this added value service opportunity, while content providers are concerned about significant lost revenue due to 'Leakage'.
With the proliferation of mobile devices and the potential of anytime, anywhere commerce there has been a steady rise in interest among retailers, banks, vendors, payment networks and mobile network operators in participating in the digital content payment market. With almost 1.7 billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide by December 2004 (according to GSM Association figures), research sponsored by LogicaCMG projects that ring tones, games and music will generate 7.6 Billion Euros in revenue by the end of 2006!
Recognizing that there was no inter-operator standard for handling on-line digital content transactions in a secure and cost-effective manner, for both computers and mobile phones, eBIZ.mobility was founded.
A New Market Reality
The Tower Group projects that by 2007 one billion macro payment transactions and 25 billion micro payment transactions will be conducted annually via mobile phone. According to a leading wireless telecommunications consultancy (BWCS, based in the UK), this is just the 'tip of the iceberg' as the mobile payment market (including payments for real goods and services and not only digital content) is at the beginning stage of what is projected to become a $380 billion industry by 2010.
The industry is increasingly moving away from a 'walled garden' approach of restricting content purchases to operator portals, and instead is allowing subscribers access to the full world of digital content anywhere on the Internet (i.e., 'off-portal').
When the operator is completely out of the payment loop, they only collect a minimal data fee for providing an 'access pipe'. As such, they and other players in the industry are under pressure to deploy alternative payment methods for off-portal content. At the same time, content providers concerned with current excessive payment fees are in need of more cost effective payment mechanisms for $2-$5 ringtones, videos, and games.
eBIZ.mobility addresses this new market reality.
Digital Purchase examples:
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ringtones |
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music |
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film clips |
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games
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ticketing, and much more! |
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