Amazon: Telcos’ Chameleon-King Ally?

Introduction

Amazon is using an array of innovative propositions to sidestep the Android-Apple duopoly in the smartphone market and Facebook’s rapidly expanding digital commerce ecosystem. Amazon’s vast selection, unparalleled logistics, innovative bundling, laser-like focus on the customer, rapidly improving entertainment proposition and leadership in voice-controlled in-home systems mean the Seattle-based e-commerce giant is fast becoming a omnipresent convenience store that always has what you want, when you want it.

Continually reinventing itself, Amazon’s restlessness could seriously disrupt the balance of power between the major global Internet ecosystems. Although the Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google ecosystems all originate from the PC-era, they have each managed to successfully extend their digital platforms into the smartphone and tablet markets. But not without a dramatic change in the pecking order. In fact, the advent of touch-controlled smartphones enabled Apple to become a major force in the digital consumer market, while weakening the position of its long-standing foe Microsoft.

Now these ecosystems need to navigate the tricky transition to voice-controlled digital platforms, which depend heavily on advanced speech recognition, artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. Amazon is leading the way, having created this new market with the rollout of its Echo speaker, underpinned by the cloud-based Alexa personal assistant system.

This report analyses Amazon’s financial firepower, the Amazon Prime bundle and strategy of bundling entertainment with retail, before considering Amazon’s areas of relative weakness – the smartphone and communications markets. In this section, the report also considers whether Amazon can sustain its lead in the nascent market for voice-controlled speakers for the home.

It concludes by exploring whether Amazon has sufficient economies of scope to build the expertise in artificial intelligence that will be required to ensure the Apple-Android duopoly that exists in the smartphone market won’t also dominate the emerging smart home sector. Finally, it considers the ramifications for telcos and makes several high level recommendations.

The global e-commerce market

Online commerce continues to grow rapidly. In 2016, global retail e-commerce sales (products and services ordered via the internet) will rise almost 24% to reach $1.915 trillion in 2016, according to research firm eMarketer. As that represents just 8.7% of total retail spending worldwide, there is plenty more growth to come. eMarketer expects retail ecommerce sales will increase to $4.058 trillion in 2020, making up 14.6% of total retail spending that year (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Retail online commerce continues to grow rapidly

The major global Internet ecosystems – Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google – all take a slice of this market. Within their ecosystems, they act as brokers bringing buyers and sellers together, earning a commission for facilitating interactions and transactions. Google and Facebook are the leading players in online advertising, while Apple is a leading distributor of digital content: Although Apple still generates most of its revenue from devices, its App Store and iTunes service are now major contributors to its top line. Still, in online commerce, Amazon rules the roost: Its online marketplace, which offers a vast selection of products and services from millions of merchants, continues to grow rapidly.

Introduction
Executive Summary
The global e-commerce market
Amazon’s financial firepower
Key takeaways
Amazon Prime: The Convenience Engine
Eroding Google Search
Key takeaways
Why Amazon wants to entertain us
A push into user-generated content
Key takeaways
Amazon’s Devices: Ups and Downs
Navigating Google’s mobile maze
Amazon’s Attempts to Develop Device Platforms
Key takeaways
Communications: Amazon’s Blind Spot?
Conclusions and Recommendations

Google/Telcos’ RCS: Dark Horse or Dead Horse?

Introduction

The strategic importance of digital communications services is rising fast, as these services now look set to become a major conduit for digital commerce. Messaging services are increasingly enabling interactions and transactions between consumers and businesses. Largely pioneered by WeChat in China, the growing integration of digital communications and commerce services looks like a multi-billion dollar boon for Facebook and a major headache for Amazon, eBay and Google, as outlined in the recent STL Partners report: WeChat: A Roadmap for Facebook and Telcos in Conversational Commerce.

This report analyses Google’s and telcos’ strategic position in the digital communications market, before exploring the recent agreement between leading telcos, the GSMA and Google to use the Android operating system to distribute RCS (Rich Communications Service), which is designed to be a successor to SMS and MMS. Like SMS, RCS is intended to work across networks, be network-based and be the default mobile messaging service, but it also goes far beyond SMS, by supporting rich features, such as video calling, location sharing, group chat and file sharing.

The report then undertakes a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis on the new Google supported RCS proposition, before considering what telcos need to do next to give the service any chance of seeing widespread adoption.

Google’s strategic headache

To Google’s alarm, mobile messaging looks set to become the next major digital commerce platform. In some ways, this is a logical progression of what has come before. Although neither Google nor Amazon, two of the leading digital commerce incumbents, seem well prepared for the rise of “conversational commerce”, communications and commerce have always been interwoven – physical marketplaces, for example, serve both functions. In the digital era, new communications services, such as SMS, email and mobile calls, were quickly adopted by companies looking to contact consumers. Even now, businesses continue to rely very heavily on email to communicate with consumers, and with each other, and through Gmail, Google has a strong position in this segment.

But many consumers, particularly younger people, now prefer to use mobile messaging and social networking services to communicate with friends and family and are using email, which was developed in the PC era, less and less. People are spending more and more time on messaging apps – some industry executives estimate that consumers spend 40% of their time on a mobile phone purely in a messaging app. Understandably, businesses are looking to follow consumers on to mobile messaging and social networking services. Crucially, some of these services are now enabling businesses to transact, as well as interact, with customers, cutting the likes of Amazon and Google out of the loop entirely.

Largely pioneered by Tencent’s WeChat/Weixin service in China, the growing integration of digital communications and commerce services could be a multi-billion dollar boon for Facebook, the leading provider of digital messaging services in much of the world. The proportion of WeChat users making purchases through the service leapt to 31% in 2016 up from 15% in 2015, according to Mary Meeker’s Global Internet Trends report 2016. Moreover, users of WeChat’s payment service now make more than 50 payments a month through the service (see Figure 1), highlighting the convenience of ordering everyday products and services through a messaging app. In March 2016, Tencent reported the combined monthly active users of the Weixin and WeChat messaging services reached 697 million at the end of 2015, representing annual growth of 39%. See WeChat: A Roadmap for Facebook and Telcos in Conversational Commerce for more on this key trend in the digital economy.

Figure 1: WeChat users find it convenient to combine payments and messaging

Source: Mary Meeker’s Global Internet Trends 2016

Executive summary
Contents
Introduction
Google’s strategic headache
Winner takes all?
Google’s attempts to crack communications
Telcos’ long goodbye
RCS – a very slow burn
VoLTE sees broader support
Google and telcos: a match made in heaven?
A new phase in the Google-telcos relationship?
Building a business case
Conclusions
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Next steps
Lay the foundations
What will Google do next?

Figure 1: WeChat users find it convenient to combine payments and messaging
Figure 2: Using Weixin Pay to complete a transaction in a fast food outlet
Figure 3: Leading communications & media sharing apps by downloads
Figure 4: Deutsche Telekom’s RCS app’s features include location sharing
Figure 5: All-IP communications services are gaining some traction with operators
Figure 6: Google Places aims to connect businesses and consumers
Figure 7: SWOT analysis of operators’ IP communications proposition
Figure 8: TOWS analysis for telcos in all-IP communications

WeChat: A Roadmap for Facebook and Telcos in Conversational Commerce

Introduction

The latest report in STL’s new Dealing with Disruption in Communications, Content and Commerce stream, this executive briefing explores the rise of conversational commerce – the use of messaging services to enable both interactions and transactions. It considers how WeChat/Weixin has developed this concept in China, the functionality the Tencent subsidiary offers consumers and merchants, and the lessons for other players.

The report then goes on to consider how Facebook is implementing conversational commerce in its popular Messenger app, before outlining the implications for Amazon, Google and Apple. Finally, it considers how telcos may be able to capitalise on this trend and makes a series of high-level recommendations to guide the implementation of a conversational commerce strategy. This report builds on three recent STL reports, Building Digital Trust: A Model for Telcos to Succeed in Commerce, Mobile Authentication: Telcos’ Key to the Digital World? and Authentication Mechanisms: The Digital Arms Race.

Communications and commerce: two sides of the same coin

For Facebook, advertising isn’t the only fruit. When it hired the former head of PayPal, David Marcus, to run Facebook Messenger in 2014, it was a clear signal of where the social network is heading. Facebook plans to go head to head with eBay and Amazon in the digital commerce market, generating revenues by enabling transactions, as well as brokering advertising and marketing. The ultimate goal is to transform communications services into end-to-end commerce platforms that enable consumers and brands to “close the loop” from initial interaction through transaction to after-sales care.

Facebook is not alone. In fact, it is following in the footsteps of Tencent’s WeChat service. In the STL Partners’ Wheel of Digital Commerce (see Figure 1), the remit of WeChat, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, SnapChat and other digital communications services is expanding to encompass the guide, the transact and satisfy segments (marked in blue, turquoise and green), as well as the retain, plan and promote segments: the traditional sweet spot for social networking services, email and instant messaging.

Figure 1: Communications services move to facilitate the whole wheel of commerce

Source: STL Partners

Facebook, in particular, is following in the footsteps of WeChat, Tencent’s messaging service, which is evolving into a major digital commerce platform in its home market of China. Whereas email, SMS and many other digital commerce services have long carried commercial messages, together with advertising and, inevitably, spam, WeChat goes much further – it also enables transactions and customer care. The central tenet behind this concept, which is sometimes called conversational commerce, is that consumers will become increasingly comfortable using a single service to converse with friends and businesses, and buy goods and services. In some markets, third parties are adding a commerce overlay to existing communications platforms. In India, for example, several startups, such as Joe Hukum, Niki and Lookup, are touting ways to use WhatsApp, SMS and other digital communications services to transact with consumers.

For telcos, the growing integration of communications and commerce exacerbates a key strategic dilemma. Through voice calls and text messaging, telcos led the digital communications market for two decades, but now face ceding that market to over-the-top players using communications as a loss leader to support digital commerce. The question for telcos is whether to compete head-on with these players in both digital communication and commerce (a major undertaking requiring major investments in product development and marketing) or whether to fall back to just providing enablers for other players.

The final section of this report discusses this question further. But first, let’s consider the arguments as to why digital communications and digital commerce are natural bedfellows:

Markets have always combined commerce and conversations

Markets – essentially a concentration of vendors in one physical location – have been a feature of most societies and cultures throughout recorded history. They fulfil two key functions: One is to enable buyers and sellers to find each other easily. The second is to enable the exchange of information, news and gossip: the communications required to help human societies to function smoothly. For many shoppers, a visit to a physical market is as much about socialising, as shopping. In other words, communications and commerce have been intertwined for centuries. Messaging apps could extend this concept into the digital age.

Conversations help build trust

Communication is often a prelude for commerce. In both a personal and professional capacity, people often seek word-of-mouth recommendations or they canvas friends’ opinions on potential products and services. As consumers increasingly use communications apps for this purpose, these platforms are already playing a key role in purchasing decisions across both services and products. The obvious next step is to enable the actual transaction to also take place within the app.

Conversations can drive commerce

People use messaging apps to organise their social lives. They chat with friends about which bars to go to, which restaurants to dine at, which films to see, which concerts to attend and other entertainment possibilities. Once the decision is made, one of the group may want to book tickets, a table or a taxi. If such a booking can be made within the messaging app, all of the group will be able to see the details and act accordingly.

Convenient customer service

After a transaction is completed, customer service kicks in. The buyer may want to change an order, check on delivery dates or make a related purchase. The seller may want feedback. For younger generations growing up with the Internet, messaging apps represent a natural way to interact with customer service representatives.

Messaging has consumers’ attention

Although most smartphones host dozens of apps, few are used regularly. Messaging apps are among this chosen few. In fact, communications apps (social networks/messaging apps) soak up a huge amount of consumers’ time and attention. Data from comScore, for example, shows that social networks accounts for between one fifth and one quarter of all the time that consumers spend on digital services (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Share of digital time of different categories of apps

Source:comScore

Merchants and brands need to go where their customers are and one of those places is messaging. Messaging apps are typically always running, frequently generating notifications. That means, for many consumers, a messaging app could be a convenient place from which to make purchases – it saves them the hassle of switching to another app or using a web browser. In an interview with Tech in Asia, Joe Hukum co-founder Ajeet Kushwaha noted: “Conversational commerce is going to offer Convenience 2.0 – better and bigger than Convenience 1.0 offered by e-commerce,” adding that Joe Hukum plans to make API (application program interface) integrations with a range of partners in order to enable quick transactions. “We’re at a point where the way we consume and transact is going to change drastically,” he contended.

The success of WeChat and the lessons it holds for other communications players suggests Kushwaha could well be right.

Executive Summary*
Communications and commerce: two sides of the same coin
WeChat – the conversational commerce trailblazer*
The merchant experience*
Muted monetisation*
Lessons to learn from WeChat/Weixin*
Facebook now following fast*
How much money can Messenger make from commerce?*
WhatsApp also targets commerce*
Takeaways: Facebook needs to work with the medium, not against it*
Implications for Amazon, Apple and Google*
Amazon – in danger of disruption*
Google – down, but not out*
Apple – already has the assets*
Conclusions and lessons for telcos*
How can telcos differentiate?*

(* = not shown here)

Figure 1: Communications services move to facilitate the whole wheel of commerce
Figure 2: Share of digital time of different categories of apps
Figure 3: The world’s most widely used mobile messaging services*
Figure 4: An example of a WeChat Subscription Account*
Figure 5: An example of a WeChat Service Account*
Figure 6: The key features of WeChat’s official accounts*
Figure 7: The main developer tools available to WeChat verified service accounts*
Figure 8: WeChat enables merchants to create a distinctive look and feel*
Figure 9: Some Chinese nurseries use WeChat to communicate with parents*
Figure 10: The WeChat Wallet offers easy access to a suite of services*
Figure 11: Tencent’s Red Envelope promotion was hugely successful*
Figure 12: WeChat’s depiction of a typical day for one of its users*
Figure 13: Tencent remains heavily reliant on online gaming revenues*
Figure 14: Facebook Messenger seeks to fill the gap in digital commerce*
Figure 15: Facebook follows in Tencent’s footsteps*
Figure 16: Hailing a taxi from within a conversation on Facebook Messenger*
Figure 17: Facebook Messenger will increasingly compete with Amazon Prime Now*
Figure 18: Telcos’ mobile money apps are becoming increasingly sophisticated*

(* = not shown here)

AT&T: Fast Pivot to the NFV Future

Objectives, methods and strategic rationale

AT&T publicly launched its plan to transform its network to a cloud-, SDN- and NFV-based architecture at the Mobile World Congress in February 2014. The program was designated as the ‘User-Defined Network Cloud’ (UDNC).

The initial branding, which has receded somewhat as the program has advanced, reflected the origins of AT&T’s strategic vision in cloud computing and the idea of a software-defined network (SDN) where users can flexibly modify and scale their services according to their changing needs, just as they can with cloud-based IT. This model also contributed to an early bias toward enterprise networking, with AT&T’s first major SDN-based service being ‘Network on Demand’: an Ethernet offering allowing enterprises to rapidly modify their inter-site bandwidth and make other service alterations via a self-service portal, first trialed in June 2014.

Data center-based infrastructure and SDN architectural principles have remained at the heart of AT&T’s vision, although the focus has shifted increasingly toward network functions virtualization (NFV). In December 2014, the operator announced it had set itself the target of virtualizing (NFV) and controlling (SDN) 75% of its network via software by 2020. What this actually means was spelled out only in mid-2015, by which time AT&T also indicated that it expected to have virtualized around 5% out of the targeted 75% by the end of 2015.

What the 75% target relates to specifically are the 200 most vital network functions that AT&T believes it will need to take forward in the long term; so this is not an exhaustive list of every network component. The list comprises network elements and service platforms supporting IP-based data and voice services, and content delivery, ranging from CPE to the optical long-haul network and everything in between. What the list does not include is functions supporting legacy services such as TDM voice, frame relay or ATM; so the UDNC involves a definitive break with AT&T’s history as one of the largest and oldest PSTN operators in the world.

Correspondingly, this involves huge changes in AT&T’s culture and organization. The operator uses the term ‘pivot’ to describe its transformation into a software-centric network company. The word is intended to evoke a sort of 180o inversion of AT&T’s whole mode of operation: a transition from a hardware-centric operator that deploys and operates equipment designed to support specific services – and so builds and scales networks literally from the ground up – to a ‘top-down’, software-centric, ‘web-scale’ service provider that builds and scales services via software, and uses flexible, resource-efficient commodity IT hardware to deliver those services when and where needed.

AT&T has described the culture change needed to effect this pivot as one of the toughest challenges it faces. It involves replacing a so-called ‘NetOps’ (network-operations) mentality and team structure with a ‘DevOps’ (collaborative, iterative operations-focused software development) approach, with multi-disciplinary teams working across established operational siloes, and focusing on developing and implementing software-based solutions that address particular customer needs. According to AT&T Business Solutions’ Chief Marketing Officer, Steve McGaw, the clear parameters that the operator has set around the SDN architecture and customer-centricity are now driving team motivation and creativity: “A product that is going to fit into the SDN architecture becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy . . . . Because we have declared that that is the way we are going to do things, then there is friction to funding that doesn’t fit within that framework. And so everyone wants to get [their] project funded, everyone wants to move the ball forward with the customer and meet the customer’s needs and expectations.”

Allowing for some degree of marketing gloss, this description nonetheless portrays a considerable change in established ways of working, with hundreds of network engineers being retrained as software developers and systems managers. The same can be said for AT&T’s collaboration with third parties in developing the SDN architecture and virtualizing so many crucial network functions. AT&T is partnering with 11 vendors – both established and challengers – on the UDNC project, co-opting them into its dedicated Domain 2.0 supplier program. These vendors are:

Ericsson (multiple network functions, and also integration and transformation services);
Tail-F Systems (service orchestration: added to the Domain 2.0 program from February 2014 and then acquired by Cisco in July 2014);
Metaswitch Networks (virtualized IP multimedia functions, e.g. routers and SBCs);
Affirmed Networks (virtualized Enhanced Packet Core (EPC));
Amdocs (BSS / OSS functionality);
Juniper (routers, SDN technology, etc.);
Alcatel-Lucent (range of network functions);
Fujitsu (IT services);
Brocade (virtualized routers);
Ciena (optical networking and service orchestration);
Cisco (routers and IP networking)

In addition, in another challenge to AT&T’s traditionally proprietary mode of operation, the operator is collaborating extensively with a range of open source and academic initiatives working on various pieces of the SDN / NFV jigsaw. These include:

ON.Lab (a non-profit organization founded by SDN innovators, and specialists from Stanford University and Berkeley) – working on the virtualization of Central Office functionality (the so-called Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter, or CORD) and the Open Network Operating System (ONOS) carrier-grade SDN platform. ON.Lab announced in October 2015 that it would partner with the Linux Foundation on open development of ONOS.
OpenDaylight (collaborative open source project hosted by the Linux Foundation, and dedicated to developing SDN and NFV technologies – various projects, including a tool based on the YANG data modeling language for configuring devices in the SDN)
OPNFV (another Linux Foundation-hosted open source project, focused on developing an open standard NFV platform – works mostly on the ARNO NFV platform).

AT&T’s Architecture – a technical summary

If you want to understand how this all fits together, consider the CORD project’s architecture as shown in Figure 1. CORD is an AT&T research project which aims to transform its local exchanges, Central Offices in US parlance, into small data centres hosting a wide range of virtualized software applications. As well as virtualizing the core telco functions based there, they will eventually also provide edge hosting for new products and services. The structure of CORD is the template for how AT&T intends to virtualize its network and how it intends to work with the three open-source groups ON.Lab, OpenDaylight, and OPNFV. Figure 1 shows how services are created in the XOS orchestration platform out of OpenStack virtual machines, OpenDaylight network apps, and ONOS flow rules.

Figure 1: How the Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter project works

Source: ON.Lab

What’s the benefit?

This means that AT&T can …

Executive Summary*
Objectives, methods and strategic rationale (shown in part here)
Progress and key milestones*
Analysis: proceeding on all fronts*
Next steps: getting it done*

(* = not shown here)

Figure 1: How the Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter project works
Figure 2: NFV means re-organising your product bundles, which is one of the main reasons it’s worth doing*
Figure 3: AT&T’s publicly disclosed virtualized network functions (VNFs) as at October 2015*
Figure 4: What AT&T is concentrating on versus Telefonica*
Figure 5: Functions in line for virtualization by AT&T*
Figure 6: How AT&T is doing versus its primary competitor, Verizon in this space*

(* = not shown here)

Baidu, Xiaomi & DJI: China’s Fast Growing Digital Disruptors

Introduction

The latest report in STL’s new Dealing with Disruption in Communications, Content and Commerce stream, this executive briefing analyses China’s leading digital disruptors and their likely impact outside their home country. The report explores whether the global leaders in digital commerce – Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google – might soon face a serious challenge from a company built in China.

In our previous report, Alibaba & Tencent: China’s Digital Disruptors, we analysed China’s two largest digital ecosystems – Alibaba, which shares many similarities with Amazon, and Tencent, which is somewhat similar to Facebook. It explored the intensifying arms race between these two groups in China, their international ambitions and the support they might need from telcos and other digital players.

This executive briefing covers Baidu, China’s answer to Google and the anchor for a third digital ecosystem, and the fast-growing smartphone maker, Xiaomi, which has the potential to build a fourth major ecosystem. It also takes a close look at DJI, the world-leading drone manufacturer, which is well worth watching for its mid-to-long term potential to create another major ecosystem around consumer robotics.

Context: sizing up China’s disruptors

As U.S. companies have demonstrated time and time again, a large and dynamic domestic market can be a springboard to global dominance. Can China’s leading digital disruptors, which also benefit from a large and dynamic domestic market, also become major players on the global stage?

Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu, which run China’s leading digital ecosystems, have all developed in a digital economy that has been partially protected by cultural and linguistic characteristics, together with government policies and regulations. As a result, Google, Facebook and Amazon haven’t been able to replicate their global dominance in China. Of the big four global disruptors, only Apple can be said to be have a major presence in China.

Thanks to their strong position in China, Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu are among the leading Internet companies globally, as measured by market capitalisation (see Figure 2). As China’s economy slows (although it will still grow about 7% this year, according to government figures), many of China’s digital players are putting more focus on international growth. Alibaba & Tencent: China’s Digital Disruptors of this report outlined how Alibaba is gaining traction in other major middle income countries, notably Russia, whereas Tencent is trying, with limited success, to expand outside of China

Figure 2: China is home to four of the world’s most valuable publicly-listed Internet companies

Source: Source: Morgan Stanley, Capital IQ, Bloomberg via KPCB

Of the five companies covered in the two parts of this report, search specialist Baidu is the least international – its revenues are almost all generated in China and its services aren’t much used outside its home country. Innovative and fast growing handset maker Xiaomi is still heavily dependent on China, but is seeing strong sales in other developing markets. The most international of the three is DJI, the world’s leading drone maker, which is making major inroads into the U.S. and Western Europe – the heartland of Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook.

As discussed in Alibaba & Tencent: China’s Digital Disruptors, international telcos, media companies and banks all have a strategic interest in encouraging more digital competition globally. Today, the big four U.S.-based disruptors dominate the digital economy in North America, Western Europe, Latin America and much of the developing world, limiting the mindshare and market share available to other players.

Many telcos are particularly concerned about Apple’s and Facebook’s ever-strengthening position in digital communications – a core telecoms service. They also fret about Google’s and Amazon’s power in digital commerce and content. On the basis that my enemy’s enemy is my friend, telcos might want to support Xiaomi’s challenge to Apple, while backing Tencent’s efforts to make messaging app WeChat an international service and Alibaba’s growing rivalry with Amazon (both aspects are covered in the previous report).

Introduction
Executive Summary
Context: sizing up China’s disruptors
Baidu – China’s low cost Google
Why Baidu is important
Baidu’s business models
How big an impact will Baidu have outside China?
Threats to Baidu
Xiaomi – Apple without the margins?
Why Xiaomi is important
Business model
Xiaomi’s likely International impact
Threats to Xiaomi
DJI – more than a flight of fancy
Why DJI is important
DJI’s business model
Threats to DJI
Conclusions and implications for telcos
Baidu, Xiaomi and DJI could all build major ecosystems
Implications for telcos and other digital players

Figure 1: Baidu is significantly smaller than Tencent, Alibaba and Facebook
Figure 2: China is home to four of the world’s most valuable publically-listed Internet companies
Figure 3: Baidu is in the world’s top 15 media owners
Figure 4: Baidu is one of the world’s leading app developers
Figure 5: Baidu’s clean and uncluttered home page resembles that of Google
Figure 6: Baidu is beginning to monetise its millions of mobile users
Figure 7: IQiyi has broken into the top ten iOS apps worldwide
Figure 8: 2014 was a banner year for Baidu’s top line
Figure 9: Mobile now generates almost 50% of Baidu’s revenues
Figure 10: Baidu says its mobile browser is popular in Indonesia
Figure 11: Xiaomi is a rising star in the smartphone market
Figure 12: The slimline Mi Note has won plaudits for its design
Figure 13: The $15 Mi Band: A lot of technology for not a lot of money
Figure 14: One of Ninebot’s products – an electric unicycle
Figure 15: Xiaomi is turning its MIUI into a digital commerce platform
Figure 16: Xiaomi even has fan sites in markets where its handsets aren’t readily available
Figure 17: Drones’ primary job today is aerial photography
Figure 18: DJI majors on ease-of-use
Figure 18: DJI claims its Inspire One can transmit video pictures over 2km
Figure 20: DJI’s Go app delivers a real-time video feed to a smartphone or tablet
Figure 21: Baidu’s frugal innovation

Alibaba & Tencent: China’s Digital Disruptors (Part 1)

Introduction

The latest report in STL’s new Dealing with Disruption in Communications, Content and Commerce stream, this executive briefing is the first part of a two part report analysing China’s leading digital disruptors and their likely impact outside their home country. The report explores whether the global leaders in digital commerce – Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google – might soon face a serious challenge from a company built in China.

Part 1 analyses China’s two largest digital ecosystems – Alibaba, which shares many similarities with Amazon, and Tencent, which is somewhat similar to Facebook. This executive briefing considers the intensifying arms race between these two groups in China, their international ambitions and the support they might need from telcos and other digital players.

Both Alibaba and Tencent are potential competitors for telcos in some markets and potential partners in others. For example, like Amazon, Alibaba has a fast growing cloud computing business. (STL recently analysed why Amazon Web Services is so much more successful than many telcos’ cloud offerings, see: Amazon Web Services: Colossal, but Invincible?).

Like Facebook, Tencent has become a leading provider of digital communications in direct competition with telcos’ voice and messaging services. STL explored how telcos could respond to the rise and rise of Facebook in our recent report: Facebook: Telcos’ New Best Friend?

Part 2 of our report on China’s digital disruptors will cover Baidu, China’s answer to Google and the anchor for a third digital ecosystem, and the fast-growing smartphone maker, Xiaomi, which has the potential to build a fourth major ecosystem. Part 2 will also take a close look at DJI, the drone manufacturer, which is well worth watching for its mid-to-long term potential to create another major ecosystem.

Sizing up China’s disruptors

When it comes to disruption, China is a special case. Offering an enormous domestic market largely insulated by regulation, this vast country is proving to be fertile ground for Internet companies that may ultimately be able to mount a credible challenge to the big four globally – Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.

These four U.S.-based disruptors have used the scale and talent available in their home market to become leading digital commerce players globally, limiting the mindshare and market share available to other players. Moreover, Apple and Facebook, in particular, are carving out a strong position in digital communications, challenging telcos’ traditional dominance of this sector.

Greater competition among the Internet ecosystems would be in the strategic interests of many telcos, media companies and banks, as they seek to shore up their revenues and relevance. To that end, they could selectively encourage digital commerce and content companies that have gained sufficient scale in China to go global and compete with the U.S. giants.

In an ideal world, there might be a dozen or so major Internet ecosystems competing for a share of the worldwide digital commerce market. That would put individual telcos and other specialist players in the digital ecosystem, such as banks and media companies, in a stronger negotiating position, potentially enabling them to capture more of the value being created in the fast growing digital economy. For example, if Tencent were to mount a serious challenge to Facebook, telcos could potentially earn a commission for promoting one service over the other. Telcos could preload Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging service or Tencent’s WeChat on the handsets they distribute or they might zero-rate access (not charge for data traffic) to either service in their markets.

Similarly, if Baidu could build effective international search and content services in competition with Google, the latter may have to pay higher commission to companies that supply it with traffic. If Google faced more competition in the digital advertising market, media companies’ sites may have to pay less commission to advertising brokers. In the smartphone market, if Xiaomi were to weaken Apple’s grip on the high-end, telcos’ might be able to negotiate better margins for distributing Apple’s handsets or enabling iPhone users to temporarily subscribe to their networks when travelling abroad.

Greater incentives to expand outside China

China’s economy is on course to grow about 7% this year, according to government figures, down from the double-digit growth at the turn of the decade. As a result, its leading disruptors are increasingly treading on each other’s toes in China and have a greater incentive to expand internationally. Although the obvious move for China’s domestic Internet companies it to initially target Greater China, nearby Asian markets and the Chinese diaspora, some have much broader ambitions. Alibaba, in particular, has significant traction in other major middle income countries, notably Russia. And the world’s leading drone maker DJI is making major inroads into the U.S. and Western Europe – the heartland of Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook.

Today, there are three major Internet ecosystems in China, headed by Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu respectively. Globally, these three players are in the top ten public Internet companies in terms of market capitalisation (see Figure 1). Moreover, Tencent has forged an alliance with JD.com, the fourth largest publicly-listed Chinese Internet company.

The first part of this report covers Alibaba and Tencent, asking whether either company is strong enough to pose a serious threat to Amazon, Facebook or Google on the global stage.

Figure 1: China is home to four of the world’s most valuable publicly-listed Internet companies

Source: Morgan Stanley, Capital IQ, Bloomberg via KPCB

Alibaba – digital commerce behemoth

Whereas most consumers in Western Europe and North America have heard of Amazon.com, many might associate Alibaba with folklore, rather than digital commerce. Yet Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. claims to be the world’s largest online and mobile commerce company in terms of gross merchandise volume (the value in US dollars of the products and services sold through its marketplaces). Although it is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, the Alibaba Group’s principal executive offices are in Hangzhou in China.

Founded in 1999 by its charismatic, combative and somewhat unpredictable executive chairman Jack Ma, Alibaba undertook the world’s largest initial public offering in September 2014. It raised USD 25 billion, which it has used to fund an ongoing acquisition spree.

Why Alibaba is important

With a market capitalisation comparable to that of Amazon and Facebook, investors clearly believe Alibaba is set to be a major player in the global economy. That belief is fuelled by the fact that Alibaba:

Runs several world-leading digital marketplaces
Is growing fast at home and abroad
Is assembling a major digital entertainment portfolio
Has acquired dozens of promising Internet companies
Is affiliated with one of China’s leading online payment services

Introduction
Executive Summary
Sizing up China’s disruptors
Alibaba – digital commerce behemoth
Why Alibaba is important
Alibaba’s business models
Likely impact outside China
Threats facing Alibaba
Tencent – a playbook for Facebook?
Why Tencent is important
Tencent’s business models
Tencent’s likely impact outside China
Threats to Tencent
Conclusions and implications for telcos
Alibaba and Tencent are very strong companies…
… but they both need strategic partners
Implications for telcos
STL Partners and Telco 2.0: Change the Game

Figure 1: China is home to four of the world’s most valuable publicly-listed Internet companies
Figure 2: Alibaba’s six major digital marketplaces
Figure 3: Alibaba has seen heady growth this decade
Figure 4: One of Alibaba’s recent investments was in MomentCam
Figure 5: Alipay helps Chinese consumers buy from overseas merchants
Figure 6: AliExpress sells a wide range of Chinese goods to the world
Figure 7: Alibaba’s UC Browser is widely used on Android smartphones
Figure 8: Comparing Alibaba and Amazon R&D over time
Figure 9: Alibaba’s mobile sales are rising rapidly
Figure 10: Almost half of Alibaba’s revenues are now generated by mobile services
Figure 11: Alibaba’s overall monetisation rate is slipping
Figure 12: Tencent runs three of the top five OTT communications services
Figure 13: Tencent claims leadership in digital content in China
Figure 14: Tencent sometimes leads Facebook
Figure 15: Tencent’s investment and partnership strategy
Figure 16: Tencent’s five years of fast growth
Figure 17: Tencent remains heavily reliant on online gaming revenues
Figure 18: Some of the use cases targeted by Tencent’s online payment portfolio
Figure 19: Tencent’s Red Envelope promotion was hugely successful
Figure 20: Both Alibaba and Tencent have seen strong growth in net income

Apple Pay & Weve Fail: A Wake Up Call

Mobile payments: Now is the time

After many years of trials, pilots and uncertainty, the mobile industry is now making a major push to enable consumers to use their mobile phones to complete transactions in stores and other merchant venues. This year is shaping up to be a pivotal year with a number of major launches of commercial mobile payment services involving device makers, mobile operators, the payment networks and retailers.

Crucially, Apple’s move to add Near Field Communications (NFC) – a short-range communications technology – to iPhone 6 has vindicated the telecoms industry’s ongoing push to make NFC a de facto standard for mobile proximity payments. Although sceptics (including Apple executives) have previously derided the cost and complexity of the technology, Vodafone, Orange, China Mobile and other major telcos have continued to develop digital commerce propositions based on the technology.

Apple’s U-turn on NFC has changed the sentiment around the technology dramatically and given the industry a clear sense of direction. Just a year ago, research firms, such as Gartner and Juniper, scaled back their forecasts for the use of mobile handsets to complete transactions in-store, primarily because Apple didn’t include a NFC chip in the iPhone 5.

The widespread use of NFC in stores will add fuel to the mobile payments market which is already growing rapidly. Some analysts are predicting mobile phones will be used to make transactions totalling more than US$721 billion worldwide by 2017 up from US$235 billion in 2013 (see Figure 1). Note, these figures include both remote/online and proximity/in-store transactions.

Figure 1: Global mobile payment transaction forecasts

Source: Gartner; Goldman Sachs (via Statista)

Although most consumers are happy paying in store using either cash or payment cards, there are two major reasons why mobile payments are gaining momentum in an increasingly digital economy:

Consumers will want to be able to receive and redeem offers, vouchers and loyalty points using their smartphones. A mobile payment service would enable them to do this in a straightforward way.
Mobile payments will generate valuable transaction data that could and should (with the consumer’s permission) be used to make highly personalised recommendations and offers.

In other words, mobile payments are an essential element of a compelling integrated digital commerce proposition.

The role of telcos

Although the big picture for mobile payments is improving, telcos are in danger of being side-lined in developed countries in this strategically important sector. (NB See the STL Partners Strategy Report, Digital Commerce 2.0: New $50bn Disruptive Opportunities for Telcos, Banks and Technology Players for a detailed study of how telcos could disrupt the key digital commerce brokers: Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook.) In recent weeks, telcos’ efforts to lead the development of the mobile payments market suffered two major setbacks. Firstly, Apple’s fully formed mobile payments solution, called Apple Pay, effectively cuts telcos out of the mobile payments business in the Apple ecosystem.

Secondly, it emerged that Weve, the ground-breaking mobile commerce joint venture between U.K. mobile operators, has pulled back from plans to facilitate payments (in addition to its existing role of delivering targeted offers to UK mobile users). As a rare example of a well thought through collaborative venture between mobile operators, Weve had been a promising initiative that could provide a playbook for collaboration among mobile operators in other developed markets. But Weve’s change of course suggests that mobile operators are still struggling to collaborate effectively in the digital commerce market.

Rewriting the Mobile Payments Playbook

The Apple Pay proposition

Unveiled along with the iPhone 6 and the Apple Watch in September, Apple Pay is an end-to-end mobile payments proposition developed by Apple. On the device side, the basic technical architecture is similar to that advocated by major telcos via the industry group the GSMA – the short-range wireless technology Near Field Communications (NFC) is used to transfer payment data from the device to the point of sale terminal, while a secure element (a segregated memory chip) is used to protect sensitive information from being hacked or corrupted by third-party apps. However, rather than using telcos’ SIM cards as a secure element, Apple has added its own dedicated piece of hardware to the iPhone 6 and bolstered security further with a fingerprint scanner.

Already used to organise boarding passes, tickets, coupons and other collateral, Apple’s Passbook acts as the primary interface for the Apple Pay service. In other words, Passbook is now a fully-fledged mobile wallet. Thanks to its iTunes service, Apple already has hundreds of millions of consumers’ credit and debit card details on file. These consumers can add a compatible payment card stored on iTunes to Passbook simply by entering the card security code. Alternatively, they can use the iPhone camera to scan a payment card into a handset or type in the details manually. If the consumer stores more than one card, Passbook allows them to change the default payment card that appears when they are about to make a transaction.

Figure 2: Apple has made it easy to add payment cards to Passbook

Source: Apple

To make a payment in a store, the consumer simply holds their iPhone next to a NFC-enabled reader (attached to a point of sale terminal) with their finger on the handset’s Touch ID – the fingerprint reader embedded into the latest iPhones (see Figure 3). Unlike some mobile payment solutions, the consumer doesn’t need to open an app or enter a PIN code. The iPhone vibrates and beeps once the payment information has been sent. In this case, the payment information is protected by three layers of security: More than any existing mainstream mobile payments solution, including the SIM-secured NFC payments touted by telcos. These three layers are

Rather than transferring actual payment card details, Apple Pay transfers so-called tokens: a device-specific account number, together with a one-time security code.
These tokens are encrypted and stored on a secure element inside the iPhone – memory that is ring-fenced from access by any app other than Passbook. They aren’t stored on Apple’s servers, so are protected from online hacking.
The payment only happens if the Touch ID system recognises the consumer’s fingerprint, proving the consumer’s was in the store.

Figure 3: The consumer is authenticated via iPhone’s fingerprint scanner

Source: Apple

If the consumer is using an Apple Watch, which also has a NFC chip and a secure element, they hold the face of the watch near the reader and double-click a button on the side of the watch. As the range of NFC is just a few centimetres, consumers will have to hold the face of their watch against the reader. This step doesn’t sound very intuitive and may cause confusion in stores.

Again, a vibration and beep confirm the transfer of the payment information. Note, the watch needs to have been linked to an iPhone with a compatible payment card stored in a Passbook app. Although Apple Watch isn’t equipped with the Touch ID fingerprint scanner in the iPhone, it does have alternative security mechanisms built in. Apple Watch is equipped with a biosensor that can detect when the watch is taken off and lock its payment function, according to a report by NFC World. Apparently, consumers will have to enter a code to re-enable the payment function when they put the handset back on. These extra steps suggest making payments using Apple Watch will be more cumbersome and potentially less secure than using an iPhone 6 to make a payment.

Figure 4: You double-click a button to confirm a payment with Apple Watch

Source: Apple

Apple Pay can also be used to make online payments in compatible apps and this is how many consumers are likely to try the service initially. Apple said that several merchants, including Disney, Starbucks, Target and Uber, have adapted their apps to accept Apple Pay transactions (see Figure 5). In this case, the consumer selects Apple Pay and then places their finger on the Touch ID interface. Note, enabling online payments is an area that has been neglected by many telcos in developed countries targeting this market, but support for remote payments is an essential component of any holistic digital commerce solution – consumers won’t want to use different digital wallets online and offline.

Figure 4: Various apps allow consumers to make payments via Apple Pay

Source: Apple

If a consumer loses their iPhone, then they can use the Find My iPhone service to put their device into “lost mode” or they can opt to wipe the handset. The next time the iPhone goes online, it will be frozen or wiped, depending on the option the consumer selected. Note, this feature negates one of the advantages of using a SIM card, which can also be wiped remotely by a telco, as a secure element.

Although the consumer’s most recent purchases will be viewable in Passbook, Apple says it won’t save consumer’s transaction information. This is in stark contrast to the approach taken by Apple’s own iTunes service and Amazon, for example, which uses a consumer’s transaction history to make personalised product and service recommendations. With Apple Pay, it seems a consumer will only be able to check historic transactions by looking at their bank statements.

The big guns in the U.S. financial services industry are supporting Apple Pay – consumers can use credit and debit cards from the three major payment networks, American Express, MasterCard and Visa, issued by a range of leading banks, including Bank of America, Capital One Bank, Chase, Citi and Wells Fargo, representing 83% of credit card purchase volume in the US, according to Apple, which says additional banks, including Barclaycard, Navy Federal Credit Union, PNC Bank, USAA and U.S. Bank, are also planning to sign up. This is a much greater level of participation than that achieved by Softcard (formerly known as Isis), the mobile commerce joint venture between U.S. telcos AT&T Mobile, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA (see next section for more on Softcard).

Apple says that more than 220,000 bricks and mortar stores will accept Apple Pay transactions. Some of the participating retailers include leading brands, such as McDonalds, Stables, Subway, ToysRUs and Walgreens. However, the retailers in the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) consortium, which is developing its own mobile commerce proposition, have not signed up to accept Apple Pay. These retailers include major players, such as WalMart, Best-Buy, 7-11, Gap and Sears. (See next section for more on MCX). Although only a handful of apps are supporting Apple Pay today, that number is likely to grow rapidly, as many consumers will find it easier to press the Touch ID than to type in a password.

To access the rest of this 28 page Telco 2.0 Report in full, including…

Introduction
Executive Summary
Mobile payments: Now is the time
Rewriting the Mobile Payments Playbook
The Apple Pay proposition
Will Apple Pay be a success?
The implications of Apple Pay for telcos
The Weve U-Turn
How Weve broke new ground
Weve’s shareholders break ranks
Weve pulls back
Conclusions and recommendations

…and the following report figures…

Figure 1: Forecasts for the value of mobile proximity payments in the U.S
Figure 2: Apple has made it easy to add payment cards to Passbook
Figure 3: The consumer is authenticated via the iPhone’s fingerprint scanner
Figure 4: You double-click a button to confirm a payment with Apple Watch
Figure 5: Various apps allow consumers to make payments via Apple Pay
Figure 6: MCX’s approach to security
Figure 7: Apple’s shrinking share of the global smartphone market
Figure 8: The Softcard wallet enables consumers to filter offers by their location
Figure 9: The virtuous circle Weve was aiming to create
Figure 10: Everything Everywhere’s Cash on Tap app is clunky to use

Google’s Big, Big Data Battle

The challenges to Google’s core business

Although Google is the world’s leading search engine by some distance, its pre-eminence is more fragile than its first appears. As Google likes to remind anti-trust authorities, its competitors are just a click away. And its primary competitors are some of the most powerful and well-financed companies in the world – Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft. As these companies, as well as specialist service providers, accumulate more and more data on consumers, Google’s position as the leading broker of online advertising is under threat in several, inter-related, ways:

Google’s margins are being squeezed, as competition intensifies. Increasingly experienced web users are using specialist search engines, such as Amazon (shopping), Expedia (travel) and moneysupermarket.com (financial services), or going direct to the sites they need, thereby circumventing Google’s search engine and the advertising brokered by Google. This trend is exacerbated by Google’s ongoing lockout from the vast amount of content being generated by Facebook’s social network. As the Internet matures, general-purpose web search may become yesterday’s business.
The rise of the app-based Internet: As consumers increasingly access the Internet via mobile devices, they are making greater use of apps and less use of browsers and, by extension, conventional search engines. Apps are popular on mobile devices because they are designed to take the consumer straight to the content they are looking for, rather than requiring them to navigate around the web using small and fiddly on-screen keyboards. Moreover, Apple, the leading provider of smartphones and tablets to the affluent, is seeking to relegate, and where feasible, remove, Google’s apps and services in its ecosystem.
Android forks: Android, an extraordinarily successful ‘Trojan Horse’ for Google’s apps and services, is the market leading operating system for mobile devices, but Google’s control of Android is patchy. Some device makers are integrating their own apps into a forked variant of this open-source platform. Amazon and Nokia are among those who have stripped Google’s search, maps, mail and store apps from their variants of the Android operating system, reducing the data that Google can gather on their customers. At the same time, Samsung, the world’s largest handset vendor, is straining at Google’s Android leash.
Quality dilution: As Google is the world’s dominant search engine, it is the prime target for so-called content farms that produce large volumes of low quality content in an effort to rank highly in Google’s search results and thereby attract traffic and advertising.
Regulatory scrutiny: Despite a February 2014 settlement with the European Commission concerning its search practices, Google remains in the regulatory spotlight. Competition authorities across the world continue to fret about Google’s market power and its ability to influence what people look at on the Internet.

1. Google’s margin squeeze

Price deflation

Google, the company that facilitated massive deflation across advertising, content, e-commerce, and mobile operating systems, is itself suffering from the deflationary environment of the Internet. Although revenue and net income are still growing, margins are shrinking (see Figure 2). Google is still growing because it is adding volume. However, there is strong evidence that its pricing power is being eroded.

Figure 2: Google margins are steadily falling as volumes continue to rise

Source: Google filings

To put this in the context of its Silicon Valley peers, Figure 3 shows the same data for Google, Facebook, and Apple using a trend line covering the 2009 to 2013 period for each company. Note, that we have used a log scale to compare three companies of very different size. Apple saw growth in both revenue and operating margins until 2013, when it hit a difficult patch, although a big product launch might fix that at any time. Facebook has grown revenues enormously, but went through a traumatic 2012 as the shift to mobile hit it. While all this drama went on, Google has grown steadily, while seeing its margins eroded.

Figure 3: Google’s operating margins are now below those of Apple and Facebook

Source: SEC filings

What are the factors behind Google’s declining operating margin? We believe the main drivers are:

The amount Google can charge per click is falling – buyers get more ads per buck.
The cost of acquiring ad inventory is increasing.

Cheaper ads

As Figure 4 shows, Google continues to drive ad volume (paid clicks), but ad rates (cost per click) are falling steadily. The average cost-per-click on Google websites and Google Network Members’ websites decreased approximately 8% from 2012 to 2013. We think this is primarily due to intensifying competition, particularly from Facebook. However, Google attributes the decline to “various factors, such as the introduction of new products as well as changes in property mix, platform mix and geographical mix, and the general strengthening of the U.S. dollar compared to certain foreign currencies.” The second quarter of 2014 saw paid clicks rise 2% quarter-on-quarter, while the cost per click was flat.

Figure 4: The cost per click is declining in lockstep with rising volume

Source: Google filings

Introduction
Executive Summary
The challenges to Google’s core business
1. Google’s margin squeeze
2. The rising importance of mobile apps
3. Android forks
4. Quality dilution
5. Regulatory scrutiny
Google’s strategy – get on the front foot
Google Now – turning search on its head
Reactive search becomes more proactive
Voice input
Anticipating wearables, connected cars and the Internet of Things
Searching inside apps
Evaluating Google Now
1. The marketplace
2. Develop compelling service offerings
3. The value network
4. Technology
5. Finance – the high-level business model

Figure 1: How Google is neutralising threats and pursuing opportunities
Figure 2: Google margins are steadily falling as volumes continue to rise
Figure 3: Google’s operating mar gins are now below those of Apple and Facebook
Figure 4: The cost per click is declining in lockstep with rising volume
Figure 5: Rising distribution costs are driving Google’s TAC upwards
Figure 6: Google’s revenues are increasingly coming from in-house sites and apps
Figure 7: R&D is the fastest-growing ad-acquisition cost in absolute terms
Figure 8: Daily active users of Facebook generating content out of Google’s reach
Figure 9: Google is still the most popular destination on the Internet
Figure 10: In the U.S., usage of desktop web sites is falling
Figure 11: Google’s declining share of mobile search advertising in the U.S.
Figure 12: Google’s lead on the mobile web is narrower than on the desktop web
Figure 13: Top smartphone apps in the U.S. by average unique monthly users
Figure 14: For Google, its removal from the default iOS Maps app is a major blow
Figure 15: On Android, Google owns four of the five most used apps in the U.S.
Figure 16: The resources Google needs to devote to web spam are rising over time
Figure 17: Google, now genuinely global.
Figure 18: A gap in the market: Timely proactive recommendations
Figure 19: Google’s search engine is becoming proactive
Figure 20: The ongoing evolution of Google Search into a proactive, recommendations service
Figure 21: The Telco 2.0 Business Model Framework
Figure 22: Amazon Local asks you to set preferences
Figure 23: Google Now’s cards and the information they use
Figure 24: Android dominates the global smartphone market
Figure 25: Samsung has about 30% of the global smartphone market
Figure 26: Google – not quite the complete Internet company
Figure 27: Google’s strategic response

Digital Commerce 2.0: Disrupting the Californian Giants

Introduction

In this briefing, we analyse the Digital Commerce 2.0 strategy and progress of the incumbents – the big five Internet players in this market – Amazon, Apple, eBay/PayPal, Facebook and Google.

STL defines Digital Commerce 2.0 as the use of new digital and mobile technologies to bring buyers and sellers together more efficiently and effectively. Fast growing adoption of mobile, social and local services is opening up opportunities to provide consumers with highly-relevant advertising and marketing services, underpinned by secure and easy-to-use payment services. By giving people easy access to information, vouchers, loyalty points and electronic payment services, smartphones can be used to make shopping in bricks and mortar stores as interactive as shopping through web sites and mobile apps.

This executive briefing considers how the rise of smartphones and the personal data they generate is disrupting digital commerce, and explores the mobile commerce strategies of the big five, their strengths and weaknesses and their areas of vulnerability.

Digital Commerce Disruption

Today, California is undoubtedly the epicentre of digital commerce. Amazon, Google, eBay/PayPal, Facebook and Apple are the leading brokers of digital commerce between businesses and consumers in most of the world’s developed economies. Each one of them has used the Internet to carve out a unique and lucrative role matching online buyers and sellers.

But digital commerce is changing fast, forcing these incumbents to innovate rapidly both to keep pace with each other and fend off a new wave of challengers seeking to take advantage of the disruption resulting from the widespread adoption of smartphones, and the vast quantities of real-time personal data they generate. Smartphones with touchscreens, full Internet browsers and an array of feature-rich apps, are turning out to be a game changer that profoundly impacts the way in which people and businesses buy and sell: Digital commerce is moving out of the home and the office and on to the street and in to the store.

As they move around, many consumers are now using smartphones to access social, local and mobile (SoLoMo) digital services and make smarter purchase decisions. This is not a gradual shift – it is happening extraordinarily quickly. Almost 70% of Americans used their mobile devices to look up information while in retail stores between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2012, according to a survey of 6,200 people by customer experience analytics firm ForeSee.

At the same time, the combination of Internet and mobile technologies, embodied in the smartphone, is enabling bricks and mortar businesses to adopt new forms of digital marketing, retailing and payments that could dramatically improve their efficiency and effectiveness. The smartphones and the data they generate can be used to optimise and enable every part of the entire ‘wheel of commerce’ (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: The elements that make up the wheel of commerce

Digital Commerce 2.0 Wheel of Commerce

Source: STL Partners

The extensive data being generated by smartphones can give companies real-time information on where their customers are and what they are doing. That data can be used to improve merchants’ marketing, advertising, stock management, fulfilment and customer care. For example, a smartphone’s sensors can detect how fast the device is moving and in what direction, so a merchant could see if a potential customer is driving or walking past their store.

Marketing that makes use of real-time smartphone data should also be more effective than other forms of digital marketing. In theory at least, targeting marketing at consumers in the right geography at a specific time should be far more effective than simply displaying adverts to anyone who conducts an Internet search using a specific term.

Similarly, local businesses should find sending targeted vouchers, promotions and information, delivered via smartphones, to be much more effective than junk mail at engaging with customers and potential customers. Instead of paying someone to put paper-based vouchers through the letterbox of every house in the entire neighbourhood, an Indian restaurant could, for example, send digital vouchers to the handsets of anyone who has said they are interested in Indian food as they arrive at the local train station between 7pm and 9pm in the evening. As it can be precisely targeted and timed, mobile marketing should achieve a much higher return on investment (ROI) than a traditional analogue approach.

Although the big five – Amazon, Google, eBay/PayPal, Facebook and Apple – are the leading brokers of “traditional” online commerce, they play a far smaller role in brokering bricks and mortar commerce: Their services are typically used to provide just once element of the wheel of commerce. Consumers shopping in the physical world tend to use a mix of services from the leading Internet players, flitting between the different ecosystems. As they shop, they might use Google Maps to locate a store, Facebook to canvas the opinion of friends and Amazon to read product reviews or compare in-store prices with those online. They might even use Apple’s Passbook to redeem a voucher or PayPal to complete a transaction at point of sale.

Although they are all involved to a greater or lesser extent, none of the big five has yet secured a strong strategic position in this new form of digital commerce. Each of them risks seeing their position in the broader digital commerce market being disrupted by the rise of SoLoMo services that seek to meld merchants online and offline sites into a coherent proposition. As the digital commerce pie grows to encompass more and more bricks and mortar commerce, the big five may see their power and influence wane.

As it becomes clear that smartphones and personal data will transform the consumer experience of bricks and mortar shopping, the leading internet companies are being challenged by telcos, banks, payment networks and other companies racing to sign up merchants and consumers for nascent commerce platforms. In most cases, these new entrants are focusing on digitising traditional commerce, but will inevitably also have to compete with Amazon, Google, eBay/PayPal, Facebook and Apple in the online commerce space – consumers will want to use the same tools and platforms regardless of whether they are in the armchair or walking down a street. Similarly, a merchant will want to use the same platform to support its marketing online and in-store, so their customers can redeem vouchers, for example, digitally or in person.

The internet giants are, of course, expanding their SoLoMo propositions to cover more of the wheel of commerce. Amazon, for example, is pursuing this market through its Amazon Local service, which emails offers from local merchants to consumers in specific geographic areas. Google is combining its Search, Maps, Places, Offers and Wallet services into a local commerce platform for merchants and consumers. But global Internet companies based on economies of scale can find it hard to develop commerce services that take into the account the vagaries of local markets.

There is much at stake: Merchants and brands spend hundreds of billions of dollars across the various elements of the wheel of commerce. In the U.S., the direct marketing market alone is worth US$ 139 billion (more than three times the U.S. online advertising market, according to some estimates (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: A breakdown of the U.S. direct marketing and advertising market

Digital Commerce 2.0 US Direct Marketing and Advertising Market

Source: STL Partners

Another way to view the strategic opportunity is to consider the vast amount of money that is still spent on paper-based marketing in local commerce – householders still receive large numbers of flyers through their door, advertising local businesses. Moreover, many merchants still operate crude loyalty schemes that involve stamping a paper card.

Closing the loop: The importance of payments

One of the most important battlegrounds for the big five is the transact segment of the wheel of commerce. Although this segment is only half the size of the promote segment in terms of revenues, according to STL’s estimates (see Figure 5), it is strategically important. Merchants and brands want to know whether a specific marketing activity actually led to a sale. By bridging the online and offline worlds, mobile technologies can close that loop. If a consumer uses their smartphone to research a product and then pay at point of sale, the retailer can see exactly what kind of marketing results in transactions.

Note that payments itself is a low margin business – American Express estimates that merchants in the U.S. spend four to five times as much on marketing activities, such as loyalty programmes and offers, as they do on payments. But Google and Facebook, as leading marketing and advertising brokers, and some telcos, are moving into the payments space to provide merchants with visibility across the whole wheel of commerce.

In general their approach is to roll out digital wallets that can be used to complete both online transactions and point of sale transactions (either using a contactless technology, such as NFC, or a mobile network-based solution). The term digital wallet or mobile wallet generally refers to an application that can store debit and credit card information, loyalty points, electronic vouchers and value. A digital wallet can reside in the cloud or on a specific device or a combination of the two. The big five each have their own digital wallet.

Although Apple and Facebook have only enabled the use of their wallets within their online walled gardens, they are both gradually extending their transact propositions into bricks and mortar commerce.

Figure 5: The relative size of the segments of the wheel of commerce

Digital Commerce 2.0: Segments and Sizes

Source: STL Partners research drawing on WPP and American Express data

Digital wallets could be the key to unlock a broader and much more lucrative digital commerce proposition. Instead of asking merchants to pay per click, a digital commerce broker could ask them to pay per transaction – a no-risk and, therefore, very attractive proposition for the merchant.

Typically designed to support approximately half of the wheel of commerce (the promote, guide and transact segments), the digital wallet is widely-regarded as an important strategic platform. The theory is that digital wallet suppliers will be well-positioned to interact with consumers while they are shopping, brokering targeted offers and promotions.

Three of the big five – PayPal, Amazon and Apple – have each already signed up tens of millions of users for their online wallets, primarily because they reduce the number of keystrokes and clicks required to complete a transaction online. These Internet players are now weighing up how best to deploy these wallets at point of sale in physical stores. The leading online digital wallet, PayPal, faces increasing competition from leading players in the financial services industry, including Amex and MasterCard (see Figure 6), as well as innovative start-ups, such as Square.

Each of these players is taking a different approach, using different technologies to enabling transactions in store. They are also having to compete with other wallets from companies outside the financial services sector, such as Google, telcos and even retailers.

Figure 6: Examples of financial services-led digital wallets

Digital Commerce 2.0: Financial Services Wallet Examples

Source: STL Partners

In the transact segment, Google, the leading broker of search-related advertising, is scrambling to catch up, rolling out Google Wallet both to compete with PayPal online and enable payments at point of sale using Near Field Communications (NFC) technology. But the software has been through several iterations without gaining significant traction. At the same time, telcos, such as AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile in the U.S. (the partners in the Isis mobile commerce joint venture), are developing mobile-centric wallets that use NFC to enable payments at point of sale, supported by the SIM card for authentication. Major retailers are also rolling out digital wallets either individually or as part of a consortium. Figure 7 compares three of the mobile-centric wallets available in the U.S. market.

Figure 7: Examples of Mobile-centric wallets in the U.S.

Digital Commerce 2.0: Mobile Centric Wallets

Source: STL Partners

Executive Summary
Introduction: Digital commerce disruption
Closing the loop: The importance of payments
Internet players’ mobile commerce strategies
Amazon – impressive interconnected flywheels
Apple – slowly assembling the pieces
eBay and PayPal – trying to get mobile
Facebook – the rising star of mobile commerce
Google – try, try and try again in transactions
Conclusions
Mobile commerce is still up for grabs
Competition from telcos and banks
Areas of vulnerability

Figure 1: The mobile commerce strengths and weaknesses of the Internet players
Figure 2: The unfulfilled gap in the digital commerce market
Figure 3: The elements that make up the wheel of commerce
Figure 4: A breakdown of the U.S. direct marketing and advertising market
Figure 5: The relative size of the segments of the wheel of commerce
Figure 6: Examples of financial services-led digital wallets
Figure 7: Examples of Mobile-centric wallets in the U.S.
Figure 8: Google’s big lead in mobile Internet ad spending
Figure 9: Google handles one third of all digital advertising
Figure 10: The mobile commerce strategy of leading Internet players
Figure 11: How the fundamental Amazon flywheel increases working capital
Figure 12: How the Amazon Payments flywheel has evolved
Figure 13: Deals on display in the Amazon Local app
Figure 14: Apple’s Passbook app stores vouchers and loyalty cards
Figure 15: Facebook’s daily active users continue to grow
Figure 16: Facebook’s mobile daily active users
Figure 17: How consumers can redeem a Google Offer
Figure 18: Who is best placed to win in facilitating local commerce?
Figure 19: Google Wallet no longer needs to work directly with banks
Figure 20: The mobile commerce strengths and weaknesses of the Internet players
Figure 21: The unfulfilled gap in the digital commerce market
Figure 22: Internet giants and start-ups best placed to be infomediaries
Figure 23: How Telefónica compares with leading Internet players

The M-Commerce ‘Land-Grab’: Telcos Vs. Apple & Google

Summary: The mobile commerce market is going through a critical ‘land-grab’ phase. This report reviews the strategies and tactics of the leading telcos and Internet players in Asia, Europe and North America as they seek to use the mobile medium to become an intermediary between buyers and sellers. It considers the pivotal role of the digital wallet, ‘big data’, the race to acquire merchants and the key alliances between telcos, banks, payment networks and Internet players (December 2012, Executive Briefing Service, Dealing with Disruption Stream).

Digital Commerce Flywheel December 2012

Below is an extract from this 33 page Telco 2.0 Briefing Report that can be downloaded in full in PDF format by members of the Telco 2.0 Executive Briefing service and the Telco 2.0 Dealing with Disruption Stream here. We’ll be publishing more on Digital Commerce in in 2013 and it will be a key theme at our Executive Brainstorms in Silicon Valley (March 2013), Europe (London, June 2013), Digital Arabia (Dubai, November 2013), and Digital Asia (Singapore, December 2012). Non-members can subscribe here and for this and other enquiries, please email contact@telco2.net / call +44 (0) 207 247 5003.

Introduction

STL defines Digital Commerce 2.0 as the use of new digital and mobile technologies, such as smartphones, to bring buyers and sellers together more efficiently and effectively. Fast growing usage of mobile, social and local services is opening up opportunities to provide consumers with highly-relevant advertising and marketing services, underpinned by secure and easy-to-use payment services. By giving people easy access to information, vouchers, loyalty points and electronic payment services, smartphones can be used to make shopping in bricks and mortar stores as interactive as shopping through web sites and mobile apps.

Telcos and their partners could play a major role in enabling digital commerce 2.0 as intermediaries that create platforms that help to bring together buyers and sellers. But Internet companies, banks, payment networks and others are also seeking to act as digital intermediaries between merchants and consumers.

This executive briefing builds on STL Partners’ Strategy Report, Dealing with the ‘Disruptors’: Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft/Skype and Amazon, which examines the mobile commerce strategies of the major Internet players, and STL’s Digital Commerce 2.0 Executive Brainstorm events in London, New York, San Francisco and Singapore.

This report reviews the strategies and tactics of the leading telcos and Internet players aiming to use the mobile medium to become an intermediary between buyers and sellers. It considers the pivotal role of the digital wallet, the race to acquire merchants and the key alliances in this space. It sets the scene for a forthcoming report that will make recommendations for how telcos and their partners should build a compelling mobile commerce proposition.

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Executive Summary

Smartphones are extending digital commerce out of the home and the office and on to the street and in to the store. With full web browsers and a host of apps, these handsets enable consumers to access information and interact with merchants and brands from anywhere and anytime.

The wallet land-grab

As smartphones go mass market, Internet companies, telcos, banks, payment networks and other companies are in land-grab mode – racing to sign up merchants and consumers for platforms that could enable them to secure a pivotal (and lucrative) position in the fast growing digital commerce market.

Across Europe, the Americas, Asia and parts of Africa, telcos, Internet players, payment networks and banks are looking to deploy their own digital wallets in the belief that these apps will become a key strategic platform. A digital wallet – software that stores debit and credit card information, loyalty points, electronic vouchers and cash – could be used to interact with consumers while they are actually shopping, brokering targeted offers and promotions. For marketers, the wallet offers a golden opportunity to reach a consumer on the cusp of making a purchase.

While Internet players, such as PayPal and Apple, tend to be focused on signing up users for their online wallets, telcos, such as AT&T and Vodafone, are developing a mobile app-centric solution that uses the SIM card for authentication.

In fact, you need both. To become a market leader, a digital wallet will have to be very easy to use both online and at point of sale. Most consumers will want to use the same digital wallet across a PC, a mobile handset and a tablet, so they can track all of their spending and offers easily. At the same time, wallets that are used both online and at point of sale will be able to generate a far more complete and comprehensive picture of the consumers’ shopping habits.

More and better data

Akin to a search engine, the digital wallet could also enable companies to capture valuable data that can be used to improve the targeting of offers and promotions. For example, the transactional data captured by a digital wallet may show what kinds of restaurants the consumer likes to eat at, enabling the delivery of appropriate vouchers. The data generated by a digital wallet could be used to broker highly-targeted offers, thereby enabling the wallet supplier to secure a pivotal and lucrative position in the digital commerce value chain.

However, it will be important for wallet suppliers to give individuals a high degree of control over their data, enabling them to delete or amend information captured by the wallet and even take that data to with them to a new wallet. While that may seem counterintuitive, both individuals and regulators are more likely to trust and accept services that are transparent and put the consumer in control.

Fragmentation could equal failure

The large number of players targeting the mobile commerce market with a diverse range of approaches risks confusing both consumers and merchants. There is a danger that both groups will play a waiting game, preferring to see which solutions rise to the top and which flop. Many stakeholders, particularly upmarket retailers and brands, will be waiting for Apple to roll out a mobile commerce proposition they can use to target the many affluent owners of iPhones. In other words, the land-grab may end up being a very drawn out and expensive process for all involved.

The Digital Commerce 2.0 Gold Rush

The opportunity

Digital commerce is being reinvented for the post-PC era. The combination of Internet and mobile technologies is enabling new forms of digital marketing, retailing and payments which could dramatically improve the efficiency and effectiveness of all kinds of businesses. Internet companies, telcos, banks, payment networks and other companies are in land-grab mode – racing to sign up merchants and consumers for platforms that could enable them to secure a pivotal (and potentially lucrative) position in the fast growing digital commerce market. Although it is early days for Digital Commerce 2.0, the gold rush is in full swing.

The advent of mass-market smartphones, with touchscreens, full Internet browsers and an array of feature-rich apps, is a game changer that is profoundly impacting the way in which people and businesses buy and sell. Consumers are already using these smartphones to access social, local and mobile digital services and make smarter purchase decisions. As they shop, they can easily canvas opinion via Facebook, read product reviews on Amazon or compare prices across multiple stores.

STL Partners’ strategy report, Dealing with the ‘Disruptors’: Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft/Skype and Amazon, identified authentication and payments and brokering online advertising and marketing as two of the key battlegrounds in the Great Game being played out by the Internet giants and the leading telcos.

Although hundreds of millions of people have already entrusted their credit or debit card details to eBay, Facebook, Apple, Google or Amazon and use these web giants’ online payment services to pay for goods, services or digital content online, telcos could yet become key players. Approximately three billion people worldwide have a billing relationship with one or more telco and carrier billing can be more secure and convenient that other payment mechanisms, particularly for people lacking debit and credit cards. Some Internet players, such as Google, would like to tap telcos’ assets and processes to help them authenticate consumers.

Brokering online advertising and marketing is clearly Google and Facebook’s core business, while Microsoft, Apple and Amazon see it as potential source of revenue growth. Different telcos have adopted different approaches to this market. While some, such as Telefonica O2, see advertising and marketing as a potential source of revenue growth, other telcos prefer to focus on providing enablers to specialists, such as Facebook. Figure 1 shows how Telefonica, an advanced telco, compares with the leading Internet players across key enablers of digital commerce. Green indicates a strong position, amber, a middling position and red, a weak position, while light blue indicates no position.

Figure 1 splits the enablers according to the two sides digital commerce platform – the blue set of enablers are aimed at downstream customers (typically consumers), while the red set of enablers are aimed at upstream customers (typically merchants and brands). Some of the Internet players, notably Google and Amazon, have a strong position on both sides of this platform.

As it stands, the online advertising and marketing market is Google’s and Facebook’s to lose. The more data and inventory you have, the more precise the targeting and the bigger the target audience. STL Partners believes only telcos with major in-market scale, such as China Mobile or NTT DOCOMO, should consider competing head-to-head with the web giants.

But, in developing countries, in particular, where most people don’t have smartphones, SMS and MMS remain a powerful marketing medium with plenty of scope to grow. There is also an opportunity for telcos to act as a trusted intermediary, helping consumers concerned about privacy to control and derive value from their personal data.

Figure 1: How a leading telco stacks up with Internet players on digital commerce

Telco vs Internet Players on Digital Commerce December 2012

Source: STL Partners

Perhaps the biggest growth opportunity in online marketing and advertising is to help merchants and brands use social, local and mobile services to stimulate demand, engage better with customers and potential customers and achieve a higher return on investment (ROI) from their marketing spend. Amazon, for example, is pursuing this market through its Amazon Local service, which emails offers from local merchants to consumers in specific geographic areas.

In theory, at least, targeting marketing at consumers in the right geography and the right demographic group should be far more effective than simply displaying adverts to anyone who conducts an Internet search using a specific term.

Highly-targeted direct marketing and loyalty programmes could be a much bigger opportunity than conventional advertising

In the U.S., the direct marketing market (US$ 139 billion) is worth more than three times the U.S. advertising market (US$39 billion), according to some estimates (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: A breakdown of the U.S. direct marketing and advertising market

U.S. Direct Marketing & Advertising Market December 2012

Source: STL Partners

The extensive data being generated by smartphones can give companies’ real-time information on where their customers are and what they are doing. That data can be used to improve merchants’ marketing, advertising, stock management, fulfilment and customer care. For example, a smartphone’s sensors can detect how fast the device is moving and in what direction, so a merchant could see if a potential customer is driving or walking past their store.

Moreover, mobile technologies also make it easier for merchants and brands to tell whether a specific marketing activity actually led to a sale. If a consumer uses their smartphone to research a product and then pay for the product, the retailer could gain a complete view of the whole commerce cycle, enabling it to see exactly what kind of marketing results in transactions.

With merchants looking to close the loop in this way, marketing and advertising brokers, such as Google, and some telcos, are increasingly moving into the payments space. In general, their approach is to roll out digital wallets that can be used to complete both online transactions and point of sale transactions (either using a contactless technology, such as NFC, or a mobile network-based solution).

Although payments itself is a low margin business, it could be an important pillar of a broader and much more lucrative digital commerce offering – American Express estimates that merchants in the US spend four to five times as much on marketing activities, such as loyalty programmes and offers, as they do on payments. In fact, transactions are just one element of a far bigger flywheel that drives the digital commerce market (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: The key elements of the digital commerce flywheel

Source: STL Partners

Actual deployments

With potentially hundreds of billions of dollars of business in play, an array of companies around the world are making significant investments in digital commerce services. They are generally experimenting with and testing different approaches and business models, particularly in the areas of mobile advertising, location-based marketing, payments and mobile money transfers.

In the following sections we outline examples of services we believe will have the most market impact, either because they have already gained market traction or because they have the backing of powerful companies. These examples illustrate the diversity of the players involved and the approaches they have adopted.

To read the note in full, including the following sections detailing support for the analysis…

Europe – experiments abound
The Weve joint venture
Cityzi
Moneta
Turkcell
WyWallet
Visa Europe
PayPal
The Mobile Money Network
CellPay
Pingit from Barclays
Asia – leading the world
South Korea
The Philippines
Bharti Airtel
SingTel
Japan
China
The U.S. – gang culture
The Merchant Customer Exchange
Starbucks and Square
American Express
PayPal
The Isis joint venture
Minutrade
Global players – grappling with glocal
Google
Apple
Vodafone and Visa
Telefonica and Visa
Deutsche Telekom and MasterCard
Conclusions and Key takeaways
Index

…and the following figures…

Figure 1: How a leading telco stacks up with Internet players on digital commerce
Figure 2: A breakdown of the U.S. direct marketing and advertising market
Figure 3: The key elements of the digital commerce flywheel
Figure 4: Examples of mobile commerce activity in the U.K.
Figure 5: Where the Weve joint venture fits into Telefonica’s strategy
Figure 6: Examples of online wallets moving into mobile
Figure 7: How Isis compares with other mobile wallets in the US market
Figure 8: Google Wallet no longer needs to work directly with banks
Figure 9: Telefonica O2’s two sided strategy
Figure 10: The mobile commerce strategy of leading telcos
Figure 11: The mobile commerce strategy of leading Internet players
Figure 12: Giving consumers control over personal data

…Members of the Telco 2.0 Executive Briefing Subscription Serviceand the Telco 2.0 Dealing with Disruption Stream can download the full 33 page report in PDF format here. Non-Members, please subscribe here. For this or other enquiries, please email contact@telco2.net / call +44 (0) 207 247 5003.

Companies and technologies covered: Mobile wallets, localized commerce, location based services, personal data, telco strategy, big data, mobile commerce, APIs, business models, SoLoMo, mobile advertising, mobile marketing, mobile payments, digital wallets.

Introduction

The global e-commerce market

Introduction

Google’s strategic headache

Introduction

Communications and commerce: two sides of the same coin

Markets have always combined commerce and conversations

Conversations help build trust

Conversations can drive commerce

Convenient customer service

Messaging has consumers’ attention

Objectives, methods and strategic rationale

AT&T’s Architecture – a technical summary

Figure 1: How the Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter project works

What’s the benefit?

Introduction

Context: sizing up China’s disruptors

Introduction

Sizing up China’s disruptors

Greater incentives to expand outside China

Alibaba – digital commerce behemoth

Why Alibaba is important

Mobile payments: Now is the time

Figure 1: Global mobile payment transaction forecasts

The role of telcos

Rewriting the Mobile Payments Playbook

The Apple Pay proposition

Figure 2: Apple has made it easy to add payment cards to Passbook

Figure 3: The consumer is authenticated via iPhone’s fingerprint scanner

Figure 4: You double-click a button to confirm a payment with Apple Watch

Figure 4: Various apps allow consumers to make payments via Apple Pay

The challenges to Google’s core business

1. Google’s margin squeeze

Price deflation

Figure 2: Google margins are steadily falling as volumes continue to rise

Figure 3: Google’s operating margins are now below those of Apple and Facebook

Cheaper ads

Figure 4: The cost per click is declining in lockstep with rising volume

Introduction

Digital Commerce Disruption

Figure 3: The elements that make up the wheel of commerce

Contents

Introduction

Executive Summary

The wallet land-grab

More and better data

Fragmentation could equal failure

The Digital Commerce 2.0 Gold Rush

The opportunity

Figure 1: How a leading telco stacks up with Internet players on digital commerce

Highly-targeted direct marketing and loyalty programmes could be a much bigger opportunity than conventional advertising

Figure 2: A breakdown of the U.S. direct marketing and advertising market

Figure 3: The key elements of the digital commerce flywheel

Actual deployments

Sample Reports