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But WAP alone is not enough: Research shows explosive growth for GSM mobiles and mobile services in Mideast market, SMS is key to growth of mobile information services market says info2cell The Middle East’s mobile market is set for a period of explosive growth as GSM mobile technologies become increasingly advanced and accessible, according to pioneering GSM information service provider info2cell. “With research reports from EMC citing a regional market potential of some 35 million GSM users over the next three years, competitive operators driving key market growth and a rising tide of WAP and SMS driven information services, regional GSM markets are already growing faster than the Middle East Internet,” said Bashar Dahabra, CEO of info2cell. However, Dahabra also cautioned against unrealistic expectations for WAP (wireless application protocol) services in the growth environment. “It’s important to understand the dynamics of WAP services, and that means experience in a number of markets is vital. Without that experience, operators are in danger of being sold service offerings that people simply won’t use. With realistic, dependable and reliable content offerings, the mobile information services market in the Middle East is set for an amazing future.” Some of the most exciting regional growth markets today include the UAE, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, while market watchers are once again reviewing the potential of the stalled Lebanese GSM market. The competitive Egyptian market has seen growth from 80,000 GSM handsets to over 850,000 driven over the past two years by the expansion of the country’s leading GSM operator MobiNil, while the Jordanian market of operator FastLink has grown in the past year from 120,000 to over 200,000 users even before the recent launch of the new GSM operator MobileCom. The UAE alone today has over 1.2 million GSM subscribers, and it's growing at 30-40,000 units a month according to the EMC research database. “In both of these markets, we have seen enormous growth driven by highly competitive multi-operator environments,” said Dahabra. “In Saudi Arabia, network expansion is driving enormous growth to a potential of over 2 million users in the coming months. Dubai-based handset distributors are currently having something of a bonanza, with mobile handsets being shipped around the region by the ton. We work closely with the region’s operators, and every operator we are talking to is working to manage huge growth.” There is new hope for market expansion in Lebanon, where GSM market expansion has been stalled by a long-running wrangle between operators LibanCell and Cellis, following the recent change of government. “Syria is now entering a new market expansion phase with the forthcoming tender for new GSM networks, while Palestine’s PalTel is building its subscriber base in a highly competitive environment. It’s the same around the region, everywhere you look there’s enormous GSM growth,” said Dahabra. Dahabra sees further growth from price reductions and the introduction of new services, particularly in the area of mobile information services. “Operators are looking for new advantage to preserve and grow their competitive positions. Where there are single operator markets, operators are able to drive new network usage through the provision of these services. Our experience of these markets is unique thanks to our long-standing position as the only information provider operating across these diverse markets, and it has shown very strongly that information services must be relevant to the end user if they are to provide a true competitive advantage,” said Dahabra. “There’s a lot of excitement over WAP, but without SMS messaging services, people don’t see WAP services as useful to them. You can’t surf the Internet using a mobile, and it’s wrong to sell that ideal to people: the small form factor of a mobile screen means that the mobile is useful for tightly defined information services. SMS drives information to the mobile, WAP allows people to drill down into that information and to react to it. That’s the way it is.” An example of the effective relationship between SMS messaging and WAP usage that Dahabra cites is in stock trading. The user visits the information provider website, or uses a WAP telephone handset, to define the stocks and shares of interest, and to define market movements that would trigger a notification. “For instance, you could say that if Microsoft stock moves up or down five points, send a message. The user gets the notification by SMS and can then use the ‘phone’s WAP capability to make a trade online while they’re on the move,” Dahabra explains. “This is an effective use of WAP for anyone who holds a stock portfolio, but it’s important to be aware of the dependence on SMS notification for its true value to the user.” Info2cell is the preferred WAP content provider for Siemens mobile phones in the Middle East and is in an alliance with Siemens to educate the regional market on WAP technology and its applications.
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