Trends of 2010 in foreign media. Parallels with Russia
Date: 13.01.2011
Trends of 2010 in foreign media. Parallels with Russia
According to foreign mass media, there can be no doubt about the major year-end trends of 2010. First of all, a half-dead tablet market has exploded with the launch of the iPad. Steve Jobs once again has proven to be a guru of marketing communications. Thanks to it, Apple together with other market players enjoys a consumer boom now: more than 80 new tablet form-factor devices were announced to be presented at the popular CES-2011 exhibition in Las Vegas. Multimedia and entertainment as engines for innovations form the second trend. The advance of game consoles, growing revenues from multiplayer online games (like WoW and applications for social networks), popularity of Twitter and Facebook are the tendencies, which directly influence the increase of traffic. Therefore, they are bound to impact the activities of telecom players. And here follows the third trend implying massive expansion of high-speed communication technologies. WiMAX has finally lost the battle to LTE (though the war is not over for WiMAX2 wireless). At first, the decision of Russian Scartel to go with LTE instead of WiMAX could seem strange. But soon other major WiMAX operators have switched to LTE, too. Speaking to BusinessWeek in autumn 2010, T-Mobile USA’s Chief Network Officer Neville Ray went as far as to neatly call WiMAX “really a niche play”. In other words, prospects of WiMAX are associated with highly tailored products.
Successful adoption of broadband access means enhanced life for users, both in welfare and in technological aspect (e.g. with further integration of “smart house” projects). VoIP communications are generally accepted now. Occasional Skype failures could not prevent traditional land line phones from further decrease. In any case, the future of such applications in various countries depends on providers’ access to administrative resources. Wide adoption of open technologies might play a nasty trick to the Internet as a global open net. Proclamations of the kind have been long heard in Russia, but still we are far from the situation in China. Russia did not try to regulate a foreign search engine (instead, we are trying to create a national / pro-government one). Nobody attempted to ban VoIP communications as the legislation improves and local carriers prefer to create their own services of the same kind. Meanwhile, after having clamped down on Google operations, China made VoIP services legal only for state-owned China Telecom and China Unicom.
Modern consumer equipment tends to combine numerous functions, from mobile banking to “a metro token”. And it should be noted that Russia does not lag behind here. A phone wallet is not a surprise any longer. Thanks to ubiquitous bank employees, people are aware of comfort and possibilities of mobile payments even in the backwoods. Capitals are doing their best to integrate up-to-date technologies. NFC stickers made token queues in the metro a thing of the past. And while the projects of MTS and Megafon look more like PR, it is clear that RFID initiatives announced by A. Chubais will get their finance support.
A good example of the kind is the GLONASS system, which continues to evolve in spite of many issues and sneers (mainly due to strong political will). The latest crash of satellites does not play a key role here. The progress of its European alternative Galileo is definitely not so advanced. It was only in October that the Galileo got its operating partners. The German Aerospace Center (DLR), Deutsche Telekom and Italian Telespazio will control the satellite navigation system. Unlike the GPS and the GLONASS, operational services for the Galileo system will be provided not by the militaries, but by civil companies. The agreement on establishing the two Galileo Control Centres in Rome and Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich means the next deployment stage of this multibillion project scheduled for launch only in 2016.
Another evident trend is a transfer of technological accents from Western developed countries to Asian states (not only Japan and China). A single segment description gives a clear picture of current technological level of Asia. The survey released by the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia in the end of October shows almost total coverage of cable television networks in certain countries of the region. Around 99 percent of TV-owning households in South Korea have a paid TV-subscription. The leader is followed by Taiwan (94%), Hong Kong (84%), and India (75%). The most developed Asian countries are in the top but the rate varies widely across the region. The statistics is not so positive for the Philippines (15%), Indonesia (3%), etc. When comparing with other regions, Northern America and Russia are to be mentioned as well. For the 450 million inhabitants of North America there are 121 million pay-TV subscriptions. In Russia, there are 16.3 million subscribers for 52.6 million households.
Naturally, a rapid growth of pay-TV attracted attention of major operators and vendors. After thorough investigations and researches, the market giants Apple and Google offered their own set top boxes. Their launch was among top year events of the market.
In fact, Apple announced its iTV back in 2006. In September 2010, the company proposed an innovative modification with totally new hardware and software. So it will be fair to say that a new field of competition with the communication giant appeared only in 2010. As usual, each of the brands has its own fans and followers. And their rivals are not ashamed of copying successful innovations.
Although the introduction of set top boxes was rather a reasonable step, their sales were not so perfect. By the end of 2010, Apple sold 250 thousands of devices (it looks like Apple fans have simply upgraded their hardware). And Google preferred to work further on the project after having asked its hardware partners to postpone the production of Google TV sets. Last autumn, Sony’s Google TV test batch went on sale. Samsung, LG and Toshiba planned their announcements for the beginning of 2011. Now there is a chance for Toshiba to quit the game.
Imperfections of set top boxes are partly due to users who are not so keen on latest technologies yet. They have a wish, they have got funds but they are not sure of their concrete needs. Their state of minds is well illustrated by the following fact: in spite of IPTV growing ever more popular, only about one in eight television viewers in the USA say they are ready to “cut the cord” with their cable companies and watch content solely via the Internet. Most Americans still haven't sorted out the myriad videostreaming providers.
With no further progress in Russian federal projects like the first multiplex, local consumers will surely turn to innovative developments, too. The case with Android based gadgets and Apple mania heating up all around indicates that imported set top boxes may be able to “blanket” Russia in the medium term. The necessary regional infrastructure is being built right now actively. Satellite dishes used to be treated as a hard-to-get luxury, but now even wooden houses at tiny railway stations have their own satellite access.
We shall undoubtedly witness new market races here during the coming year. Let us hope that they would not prevent vendors from effective innovations.
In general, the whole informational market is transforming into a global arena for fighting of developers and operators. Symbian, Bada, iOS, BlackBerryOS, Android have grabbed their market share. And their owners compete in many fields. Due to the absence of “national borders”, global players are shaping a more consolidated market. The process seems rather natural and many leaders have succeeded in strengthening their positions. It may seem like they have nothing to fear now, with their authority and ability to guess what the consumer needs.
But the example of Nokia’s managerial crisis teaches us that any company may face huge problems. Lost lead in several crucial areas and issues with employees were the result of stifling bureaucratic culture and complacency of the organisation swollen by its trendsetter success. The situation around the Finnish giant became so tense that even The New York Times prepared a scathing material about Nokia. In September 2010, the NYT published an article citing opinions of former company employees and expressing its discontent with corporate top management. Nokia is experiencing difficulties practically everywhere now. In India, where the Finns owned half of the market, their share dropped down to 36.3% (from 54.1%) after a single quarter. If its positions slacken further, other media will be ready to take their part in Nokia’s agony.
So, 2011 will become a year of LTE triumph and tablet PCs, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, various mobile services, leading carriers and communication vendors.
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