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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Eric L who wrote (53830)4/4/2003 8:38:56 AM
From: slacker711  Respond to of 54805
 
Making GPRS pay is a requisite to get beyond 2.5G and move to 3GSM WCDMA and royalty revenue flow to Qualcomm.

It was very nice to see Vodafone actually make their subscription target for their "Live" service. I havent heard what the ARPU of the Live users is....but I would imagine that it is substantially higher than the average (Live is expensive). Hopefully, we are at the beginning of the hockey stick for data growth on the GPRS side.

Note that it is impossible (so far) to get at pure 1xRTT wireless data numbers because nobody has yet reported 1xRTT subs that have a data subscription.

At least for me, it doesnt really matter much that the Korean carriers dont release this info. Watching the revenue hockey stick serves as pretty good proxy.

FWIW....I had been meaning to write an overview of how PCS and Verizon were doing with wireless data. There is now a decent amount of numbers that indicates that they are starting to see success. I decided to put it off until after they release earnings....hopefully, we will get even more concrete evidence.

For all of the Gorilla Gamers waiting for wireless data to take off....I think we are actually starting to see the beginning of the process.

Slacker



To: Eric L who wrote (53830)5/1/2003 1:07:35 PM
From: slacker711  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 54805
 
Wireless data in the US

Probably the biggest question overhanging Qualcomm has been weather the US/Europe will ever see the type of data usage that Korea and Japan....I think we are finally getting to the point where we can look at some statistics. Unfortunately, neither PCS or Verizon provides the in-depth look at their data subscribers that the Korean carriers do, but I have compiled the numbers that they have released. The overall revenues are still pretty low, but the trends are looking better and, for once, I think the data services are outperforming the goals that the carriers have set.

For those who might not follow Sprint....PCS Vision is the name of their data services that they launched at the same time as they completed their nationwide 1xrtt expansion (August '02). It allows for both browsing (WAP 2.0) as well as downloadable applications (J2ME). They have an open-garden system which allows the user to go to non-PCS affiliated websites for downloads (as opposed to BREW).

Most of the numbers are from earnings reports/CC's. I think the key metric to follow is the adoption rate. This is the percentage of the total number of handsets sold where a customer has signed up for Vision. It has seen a dramatic accleration since the launch....and is way ahead of '03 expectations.


Aug 30 Oct 17 Dec 12 Dec 30 Feb 4 Mar 30
Adoption ~5% 10% ~18% 20% ~25% >30%
Rate

Total 120k ~400k >600k 1,300k
subs



Note that the total number of Vision users includes subscribers that are still on a free trial. Greater than 2/3 of those on free trials are converted to paying subscribers.

During their analyst meeting in December, PCS stated that they expect a take rate for Vision of between 20-25% for all of '03. For the 1st Q of '03 (overall), they were already seeing a 26% adoption rate. PCS seems comfortable enough with how Vision is doing that they are raising their flat-rate fee from $10 to $15. The $15 includes $5 worth of free downloads....and is clearly meant to encourage wireless downloads from PCS affiliated developers.

Overall revenue from Vision is still low, in December, they targeted a $2 contribution to ARPU from Vision by the end of '03. Hopefully, they will be able to beat this number...but they havent yet updated the guidance.

They key questions for Vision going forward will be if they can continue to accelerate Vision adoption and if this will eventually translate into greater overall marketshare. They have stated that about 50% of Vision subscribers are new customers....however, there hasnt been much improvement in the net additions number for PCS yet.

I'm still trying to find some more numbers from Verizon....should post something later today.

Slacker