Calls to end the scandalously wasteful mobile phone industry business model

 The mobile phone industry has, until now, made its profit margins from sales of products. The mark ups on handsets and minutes are getting slimmer and slimmer, writes Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of Synchronica.
That's a sign of maturity. Another sign of coming of age is whenyou get into services. 
 
The latest data from market analysts such as Strategy Analytics shows handset sales declining sharply. And a recent report from Portio Research showed that Smartphone shipments were at 12.5 per cent last year and will not reach 25 per cent of the total annual handset shipments until 2013. The harsh reality is that subscribers are replacing their handsets less frequently than before the recession took hold and, when they do replace their handsets they are opting for mid-range or even lower-end devices.  So aren’t operators missing a trick?  In my view, they should be clawing back some of this lost revenue from Smartphone shipments by offering Value Added Services (VAS) that work on legacy handsets and not just on the latest and greatest Smartphones.

The Smartphone revolution is not going to happen any time soon and, in any case, the lines are blurring between Smartphones and feature phones. Why opt for a more expensive Smartphone when today’s feature phones have built-in functionality just waiting to be used? Operators that offer addictive services, such as our mobile email solution that works on any handset, to the non-Smartphone user, are the ones that will thrive in today’s tough climate.