A report this month from the GSMA has predicted an increasingly tough few years ahead for mobile carriers, with global revenues dropping 16% by 2017.
With US subscriber penetration now at 70%, text message volumes declining for the first time and voice revenues continuing to fall, many believe the era of the ‘dumb pipe carrier’ is here.
From where we stand – as one of the only mobile companies with direct connections to all the main US carriers – this is far from the truth. Here’s what we think the smart carriers will do to stop the decline:
Use their own tools to grow customer loyalty
Rich media marketing solutions like MMS are heavily used in the retail sector to increase loyalty and drive sales, with proven ROI. Carriers will make greater use of mobile relationship management (MRM) and MMS to reach customers, significantly increasing loyalty and reducing churn.
Rule ad tech with big data driven solutions
With access to a wide range of data from millions of subscribers, carriers have the potential to lead the ad tech sector. By building permission databases of their customers and sharing rich data with publishers and advertisers carriers will be poised to capture a large share of the $24.5billion mobile advertising market.
Win a bigger share of OTT revenues
The app ecosystem has made purchasing digital goods and services seamless, disenfranchising carriers in the process. Carrier billing, a two-click mobile payment process that adds digital purchases to a carrier bill, is growing in popularity thanks to a better revenue split than the main app stores. As it grows, carriers who embrace it stand to regain a large share of transactions made on the mobile device
Which carriers would you bet on to drive these trends?