The 170 million mobile phone customers currently on prepaid packages across Western Europe are key to generating increased revenue from data services, according to a new report from the research firm, Analysys. "Prepaid customers already account for 63% of active mobile users in Western Europe and, despite operator efforts to convert them to contract subscriptions, will remain a substantial segment of the mobile market for at least the next five years," says lead author Emily Turnbull.
The report argues that prepaid customers are potentially valuable users of next-generation mobile data services. However, despite the dominance of prepaid users in terms of customer numbers, most operators have only made new GPRS services, such as multimedia messaging and entertainment services, available to their contract customers.
"Mobile operators have until now delayed launching the same content and data services to their prepaid customers, due to a mixture of commercial priorities and technical difficulties," says Turnbull. "It is now critical that operators turn their attention to providing common services to all their customers, if they are to succeed in tapping the full revenue potential of new technologies such as GPRS and UMTS."
If operators make next-generation services available to prepaid customers by early 2003, Analysys estimates that residential prepaid users could generate US$15.5 billion in GPRS and UMTS non-voice service revenue by 2007.
According to Analysys, operators need to evaluate the capabilities of their existing prepaid charging systems, many of which are unequipped to deal with the range of new requirements that mobile data and content services bring. However, the report stresses that there is no single preferred solution to meet operator requirements. As Turnbull points out: "The most appropriate solution for a particular operator will depend on the status of its legacy systems, its immediate capital expenditure plans and its ongoing business priorities."'"
Posted to the site on 2nd July 2002
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/7085.php