Telcos and GAFA: Dancing with the disruptors

Consumer

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Telcos and the major Internet platforms increasingly rely on each other. What kinds of agreements should operators enter into with Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google and what should they avoid? And what are the strategic implications of supporting players who habitually use their powerful brands and software expertise to disrupt entire industries?

Introduction

Across much of the world, the competing Internet ecosystems led by Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google have come to dominate the consumer market for digital services. Even though most telcos continue to compete with these players in the service layer, it is now almost a necessity for operators to partner with one or more of these ecosystems in some shape or form.

This report begins by pinpointing the areas where telcos are most likely to partner with these players, drawing on examples as appropriate. In each case, it considers the nature of the partnership and the resulting value to the telco and to the Internet ecosystem. It also considers the longer-term, strategic implications of these partnerships and makes recommendations on how telcos can try to strengthen their negotiating position.

This research builds on the findings of the Digital Partnerships Benchmarking Study conducted between 26th September and 4th November 2016 by STL Partners and sponsored by AsiaInfo. That study involved a survey of 34 operators in Europe and Asia Pacific. It revealed that whereas almost all operators expected to grow their partnerships business in the future, they differed on how they expected to pursue this growth.

Approximately half (46%) of the operator respondents wanted to scale up and partner with a large number of digital players, while the other half (49%) wanted to focus in on a few strategic partnerships.  Those looking to partner with a large number of companies were primarily interested in generating new revenue streams or increasing customer relevance, while many of those who wanted to focus on a small number of partnerships also regarded increasing revenues from the core business as a main objective (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: The business objectives differ somewhat by partnership strategy

Source: Digital Partnerships Benchmarking Study conducted in late 2016 by STL Partners and sponsored by AsiaInfo

Respondents were also asked to rank the assets that an operator can bring to a partnership, both today and in the future. These ranks were converted into a normalized score (see Figure 2): A score of 100% in Figure 2 would indicate that all respondents placed that option in the top rank.

Figure 2: Operators regard their customer base as their biggest asset

Source: Digital Partnerships Benchmarking Study conducted in late 2016 by STL Partners and sponsored by AsiaInfo

Clearly, operators are aware that the size of their customer base is a significant asset, and they are optimistic that it is likely to remain so: it is overall the highest scoring asset both today and in the future.

In the future, the options around customer data (customer profiling, analytics and insights) are given higher scores (they move up the ranks). This suggests that operators believe that they will become better at exploiting their data-centric assets and – most significantly – that they will be able to monetize this in partnerships, and that these data-centric assets will have significant value.

The findings of the study confirm that most telcos believe they can bring significant and valuable assets to partnerships. This report considers how those assets can be used to strike mutually beneficial deals with the major Internet ecosystems. The next chapter explains why telcos and the leading Internet players need to co-operate with each other, despite their competition for consumers’ attention.

Contents:

  • Executive Summary
  • Strategic considerations
  • Delivering bigger, better entertainment
  • Improving customer experience
  • Extending and enhancing connectivity
  • Developing the networks of the future
  • Delivering cloud computing to enterprises
  • Introduction
  • Telcos and lnternet giants need each other
  • Delivering bigger, better entertainment
  • Content delivery networks
  • Bundling content and connectivity
  • Zero-rating content
  • Carrier billing
  • Content promotion
  • Apple and EE in harmony
  • Value exchange and takeaways
  • Improving the customer experience
  • Making mobile data stretch further
  • Off-peak downloads, offline viewing
  • Data plan awareness for apps
  • Fine-grained control for consumers
  • Value exchange and takeaways
  • Extending and enhancing connectivity
  • Subsea cable consortiums
  • Free public Wi-Fi services
  • MVNO Project Fi – branded by Google, enabled by telcos
  • Value exchange and takeaways
  • Developing the networks of the future
  • Software-defined networks: Google and the CORD project
  • Opening up network hardware: Facebook’s Telecom Infra Project
  • Value exchange and takeaways
  • Delivering cloud computing to enterprises
  • Reselling cloud-based apps
  • Secure cloud computing – AWS and AT&T join forces
  • Value exchange and takeaways
  • Conclusions and Recommendations
  • Google is top of mind
  • Whose brand benefits?

Figures:

  • Figure 1: The business objectives differ somewhat by partnership strategy
  • Figure 2: Operators regard their customer base as their biggest asset
  • Figure 3: US Internet giants generate about 40% of mobile traffic in Asia-Pacific
  • Figure 4: Google and Facebook are now major players in mobile in Africa
  • Figure 5: Examples of telco-Internet platform partnerships in entertainment
  • Figure 6: BT Sport uses YouTube to promote its premium content
  • Figure 7: Apple Music appears to have helped EE’s performance
  • Figure 8: Amazon is challenging Apple and Spotify in the global music market
  • Figure 9: Examples of telco-Google co-operation around transparency
  • Figure 10: YouTube Smart Offline could alleviate peak pressure on networks
  • Figure 11: Google’s Triangle app gives consumers fine-grained control over apps
  • Figure 12: Examples of telco-Internet platform partnerships to deliver connectivity
  • Figure 13: Project Fi’s operator partners provide extensive 4G coverage
  • Figure 14: Both T-Mobile US and Sprint need to improve their financial returns
  • Figure 15: Examples of telco-Internet platform partnerships on network innovation
  • Figure 16: AWS has a big lead in the cloud computing market
  • Figure 17: Examples of telco-Internet platform partnerships in enterprise cloud
  • Figure 18: AT&T provides private and secure connectivity to public clouds
  • Figure 19: Amazon and Alphabet lead corporate America in R&D
  • Figure 20: Telcos need to be wary of bolstering already powerful brands
  • Figure 21: Balancing immediate value of partnerships against strategic implications
  • Figure 22: Different telcos should adopt different strategies