The World Mobile Congress
I was at the World Mobile Congress last week and I wondered, what are the key players in the mobile? Not that I don’t know already this industry, it is my day job. The most wealthy companies are for sure the network operators and the mobile manufacturers (e.g. Vodafone, Nokia). The ones getting the most attention from journalists are Apple, Google for example. But what about the customer, what is the most important part for him? And will it always be the same or does it change with the maturity of the industry?
Here are the categories that I identified at the congress, with illustrations from other industries:
- Networks / Distributors: mobile operators such as Orange, Vodafone, Telefonica or T-Mobile. In the transport industry, networks are for example highways and rails. In the movie industry, they are the cinema chains like UGC. Without them, nothing is possible. They are the backbone of the industry in that respect.
- Manufacturers: Nokia, HTC, Samsung, BlackBerry and others. The main manufacturers in the transport industry are car manufacturers. It is what the customer has physically in his hand, the most concrete part of the all thing. I also put in this category the technologists such as Gemalto, Intel or Goodyear.
- Content providers: MSN, The Weather Channel or the New York Times. In the transport industry, maybe the radio you listen in your car. In Cinema, definitely the films. This category plays a central role in media related activities.
- Service providers / applications: Nokia maps, Google mail, Twitter or Apple store. In the transport industry, timetables, in-flight first class services for example. In the cinema, maybe online movie ratings or the possibility to buy food before a movie.
- Advertisers: If no one tells people that something is out there, it won’t be used by anyone. In that sense, communicators are central to any industry.
- Countries and universities: Countries with their legal frameworks, education systems and structures for innovation can be viewed as important players. They enable an industry in the first place.
I did this rough classification very quickly and should put more thought in it, but you get the idea. Each of those categories could be considered as the central part of the industry. Actually, each actor of an industry is convinced he is the centre, as the industry could not live without him. What is required to classify the categories by importance is a set of values, for example:
- If money is the value, the networks or manufacturers are at the core of the mobile industry
- If innovation is the value, service providers are maybe at the core of the mobile industry
- If information is the value, content providers win
So, at the end of the day, what you consider being the core of an industry depends of your values ,and there are no correct or bad answers. My next question is then, what are the values of let’s say the journalists, which in a way represent the preoccupations of people. Journalists at the World Mobile Congress were typically tech journalists or business journalists. I didn’t see any political / society journalists nor any art critics for example. Not necessary because there was nothing to say in those areas (impact of mobile in social activities, privacy protection, flash mobs,…) but because, today, people don’t think this is central in the way they use their mobile. I just wanted to highlight this observation to prove that things can always be different.
What is your opinion, what should be the corner stone of an industry?
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