Mobile Software market

A lot of harbinger about emerging market for mobile phones and when it come to developing nations it becomes very important for mobile phone OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) and ODMs (Original Design manufacturers) to keep the cost very low.

Well, How low is “very low”? And just how can the OEMs keep the phone costs down?

Not an easy one!

Primarily two approaches viz.

1. Keep the BOM (Bill of Materials) cost very low.

It mainly depends upon the reference design providers like Texas Instruments, Philips, Infineon, Skyworks and various small vendors. All of them are now talking about single chip solutions for the mobile phone with less number of components. That would lead to lower costs

2. Sleek but rich software solution, which provides differentiating applications and look –n-feel.

How is that possible? When you go for better look and feel and features, memory always becomes an issue and it increases the BOM cost. That is a challenge for the smart software architects and engineers.

Another challenge at the software front it score better on time to market and be dynamic for the fast changing market needs.

There is a growing need for customized solutions for the target market segment at reasonably lower cost, which the bigger players cannot address given their high operation costs and even higher inertia.

What kind of market is available for the ULC phones?

By 2008:

1. India will be having around 140 mn ULC phones.

2. Latin American countries will be having 275 mn ULC phones.

3. Other Asia-pacific developing countries will be having around 210 mn ULC phone.

4. Africa will be having 160 mn ULC phones.

5. Middle east will be having around 60 mn mobile ULC phones.

It shows that market is huge and there is a great opportunity for ULC to mid end customized phone category, where you can provide customized solution for the target segment market.

What are the different features would be need to for these markets?

Let’s take India as an example:

Innovative UI->

The UI is challenging handset manufacturers, as mobile phones are increasingly handling advanced applications and featuring sophisticated functions that support the mobile lifestyles of their owners. This makes the design of the UI increasingly complex, while the pressure to reduce time-to-market has not diminished. Device vendors need to increase their flexibility to better respond to rapid changes in the mobile handset market as the UI has become central to the success of next generation mobile services. Indeed, vendors are facing strong pressure from operators and service providers to adapt the UI with customized features to ease the usability of services and facilitate the promotion of branded content.

For data services->

The slow growth of mobile data services is currently embarrassing major players in the wireless industry. The unexpectedly slow take-up of these services is partly due to poor user experiences with existing handsets, while the new generation of devices has been slated by users because of their unworkable UIs. As such, an efficient and easy-to-use UI is a determining factor for the success of mobile handset devices. It is also vital for the adoption of both operator-specific wireless services and wireless Internet services.

Voice only services->

SMS based value added services->

We’ll add more data in our next blog, so keep watching and putting your feedback/research in to this topic.

Are the software professional ready to take up the challenge?

Sunil and Lekh