By Mayur Pitamber, Product Marketing Strategist for Openwave®.

One of the major talking points this year at Mobile World Congress was how Western consumers’ mobile phone usage patterns are shifting from text and voice, to data. Mobile internet, mobile applications, email and location-based services are no longer just add-on services, but a core part of many operators’ and handset manufacturers’ strategies.

This shift has been evident in recent announcements from some of the biggest players in the mobile industry. Orange announced a large push into the combined mobile and PC internet space, through a joint deal with HP. Skype announced deals with Nokia and Sony Ericsson to integrate its service into several different phone models. Before Christmas, the operator Hutchinson 3G UK and INQ, a handset vendor focused on social networking, launched the INQ1, which built internet services such as Facebook, MSN, and eBay directly into the software of the handset. Also, the network infrastructure to bring these services to life was highlighted by Telstra’s announcement of the fastest mobile broadband, clocking in at speeds of 21mbps.

Critical to informing these strategic decisions is a deep understanding of what consumers are doing on their phone. Data taken from Openwave® Mobile Analytics in 2008 revealed that the top two search terms on both Google and Yahoo! OneSearch were the major social networking sites Facebook and MySpace. In addition, the term ‘social networking’ was also among the top searches. There has also been real growth in mobile video. comScore recently reported that 6.5 million Americans tuned into mobile video in August 2008, and among the top operators in the USA, AT&T claimed the most mobile video viewers with 4.4 percent of subscribers accessing either programmed or on-demand mobile video.

‘Understanding subscriber behaviour is key’

In short, data traffic is skyrocketing, forcing operators to explore ways to monitor, optimize and manage traffic. Understanding subscriber behaviour is key to operator success in terms of providing services that are relevant to subscribers and meeting bandwidth capacity requirements.

We have already seen a shift away from operators’ “walled garden” approach to the mobile internet. This method was used to keep customers within a portal and direct them towards services provided by operators. Today more consumers are connecting directly to the Internet, or using applications which draw on mobile data, but not necessarily via the browser (the iPhone App Store is a successful example of this latter model). The App Store and its competitors have spurred innovation all over the world as developers are continually creating relevant and exciting products for consumers. Nokia’s announcement of the Ovi Store, which is set to go live to consumers in May this year, is a good indication that major players will be moving in this direction. Nokia plan to offer a range of content, including applications, games, videos, widgets, podcasts, location-based applications and personalised content,

‘through the right mobile analytics tools, (operators) can unobtrusively gain deep insight into consumer behaviour’

As a result, understanding, in detail, the usage patterns of applications, data and Internet is essential for operators to develop new revenue streams. To this extent, the operator continues to occupy the ideal position in relation to the consumer. Operators have all the information pertaining to a subscriber, voice, data and SMS usage data, demographic data, and location data. Through the right mobile analytics tools, they can unobtrusively gain deep insight into consumer behaviour. This is especially important in the current economic crisis, where operators can leverage the subscriber data which they store and can develop strategies to deliver targeted products and services which will offer increased subscriber value. While this may seem more complex than the old voice and text models, it means that once operators understand their consumers, they can create diversified revenue streams which don’t rely on the subscription model.