Social media analytics: The new marketing paradigm (Part II)

This is the second of a two part post that explores the scope of Social Media Analytics as a tool for the new age marketing paradigm. In Part I i have laid out the key benefits of Social media Analytics

A few quick Examples where SMA is being used effectively
1. Comcast looks at negative feedbacks and outbursts of anger, to detect and respond to service outages and product problems
2. London Hedge Fund, Derwent capital mkes trades basis the financial calm or anxiety from social media data
3. China manages citizen outrage through measured responses to specific online complaints about matters such as Police corruption

Social; media Analytics in Action -
Economic Times

The Ecosystem
As with all other business systems, the demand for specialist service providers has engendered host of specialized SMA service providers – Many of these companies started out with basic services such as creating social media accounts and pages, and have now graduated to playing the role of social media consultants. They developed a software platform that can sift through billions of bits of data on social media and analyse it through selflearning algorithms. Combining SMA with Semantics and other media (TV being the largest), associations, patterns and trends – provides a whole new dimension to brands and marketers. By 2016, large corporations are expected to spend around $9.8 billion (Rs 55,000 crore) on social-media advertising and social media programs, from $3.8 billion in 2011, according to research firm BIA/Kelsey.

Covering 1 out of every 7 person on this planet, Social media and Analytics is the world’s largest focus group, the largest town hall. Companies that figure this out and manage things will thrive in the next 10-15 years. Companies that don’t will fail.

Social media analytics: The new marketing paradigm (Part I)

Facebook reports 1.11 Bn users, Twitter subs top .55 Bn , Google+ has over .34 Bn users. The Social Media Juggernaut is becoming impossible to miss in terms of planning and executing Marketing strategies. Companies are using conversations on social media platforms to shape entry strategies in new markets, address consumer grievances and communicate directly with target groups. This post (First of a two part series) explores the scope of Social Media Analytics as a tool for the new age marketing paradigm.

Social Media Analytics
While the social media is now a matured platform, it is still early days for social media analytics. Social media analytics roughly imply the set of tools and metrics that Social media in terms of experience, engagement, click thrus and others. In the right term Social media analytics is to this decade what SEO was to the 2000-10.

Social media analytics helps brands and marketers converse in the proper context with the right audience and close business with customers. Brands are using analytics to understand who they are interacting with, what users like and how to create communication to reach out to the right audience. Markets are truly all about conversations. Thus, Brands need a new suite of analytics solutions to keep them on top of competitive campaign activity and to mine actionable insights. Although at this point of time, brands have mainly focused on changing communication according to the analytics it is expected that in times to come Brands will reach maturity in terms of a stage of creating products and services based on analytics. Consumer instead of being the last point of the marketing channel will be aptly present across the full value chain.

Key benefits of Social media Analytics (SMA)
1. Status Versus Dynamic: Provides a continuous monitor of conversation about any marketing program. Compare this with Surveys and research programs that are intermittent and snapshot based.
2. Scale: While numbers in surveys are limited, and the social media is all about the exponential movement of a conversation through the population
3. The Various shades of consumer response: While Ads are carefully constructed and completely vetted by brands, consumer response to these ads was only on overall aggregate level. SMA however can space out the nuances in the way.
4. Putting Context in the equation: Context affects the extent to which an ad/program generates buzz. Historically, context was held as a constant – whereas SMA determines that context plays a fundamental role in the interaction of the brand and the consumer.
5. Monologue versus Dialogue: Also SMA signals an effective shift in power from one way communication (traditional media) to dialogue between the brand and consumers of mass media.
6. Responsiveness: An early feedback from the first adopters could also provide clues on potential wider impacts and the brand marketer may tweak the message to suit his TG.

Continued in Part II

Gartner: Q1, 2013 Mobile Phone and Smartphone Market shares

Gartner’s Q1, 2013 mobile phone and smartphone shipment numbers provide the same set of observations

1. The total mobile phone shipment numbers have been stagnant YoY (425.8 million Q1, 2013 versus 422 million Q1, 2012) …
2. …. Bogged by 22% decline in feature phone shipments (215.7 million Q1, 2013 versus 275 million Q1, 2012)…
3. …. And Buoyed by 43% increase in the smartphone shipments (210 million Q1, 2013 versus 147 million Q1, 2012)!

4. Smartphone sales accounted for 49.3 percent of sales of mobile phones worldwide in the first quarter, up 34.8 percent year-on-year.
5. Only the Asia/Pacific region contributed to mobile phone sales across the globe, with a 6.4 percent increase year-on-year. More than 226 million mobile phones were sold to end users in Asia/Pacific in the first quarter of 2013, which helped the region increase its share of global mobile phones to 53.1 percent year-on-year. China saw its mobile phone sales increase 7.5 percent in the first quarter of 2013, and its sales represented 25.7 percent of global mobile phone sales, up nearly 2 percentage points year-on-year.

6. Samsung rules the smartphone roost growing by 51% YoY. In Fact, Samsung presence in Smartphone segment is so overwhelming that its sales and market shares are almost equivalent of its next 4 competitors put together (Apple, LG, Huawei, ZTE)
7. Apple, is estimated to have secured 18.2 percent of global marketshare, a drop of 4.3 percentage points. Apple’s redemption has been the Chinese market with the lower price of the iPhone 4 making China a key revenue generator for the tech giant. However, with no new products due from the Apple stable until the fall, the next quarter may drag Apple’s market shares significantly downward.

8. In terms of operating systems, Android continues to race ahead of rival systems, claiming 74.4 percent of global marketshare. 156.1 million smartphones running Google’s operating system were sold in the first quarter, whereas Apple’s iOS claimed an 18.2 percent slice of the market with iPhone sales. With new OSs coming to market such as Windows,Tizen, Firefox and Mozila, one can expect some market share to be eroded, but not enough to question Android’s volume leadership.

Indian Telecom: The tide seems to be turning and the industry is maturing

Reliance Q1, 2013 results possibly holds out light to the beleagured Indian Telecom Industry in terms of the business case. It signals the end of hypercompetitive era (and operator bleed), end of consumer sops (change of direction to quality of acquisition), increasing data revenue (that was inevitability catching up), Eco-system consolidation across Operators, ISPs, VAS providers and building alliances and emergence of EVDO +GSM devices.

Highlights
1. RCOM has reported today 7.2 million 3G subscribers and 29.4 million data connections for the quarter ending March 31, 2012, and a 21% increase in data traffic quarter on quarter.
2. RCOM increased tariff’s by 20% on both GSM and CDMA. Reduced promotional offers by 65%, and are reducing discounted plans.
3. RCOM is trying to create a healthy ecosystem, forging relationships with leading global plans, and entering into exclusive partnerships with social media networks. RCOM has tied up with leading handset manufactuers for CDMA smartphones. RCOM entered into an exclusive arrangement with Lenovo. Phones will be attractively priced and work on CDMA and GSM, allowing switching calls between the two, based on the strength and quality of the signal.
4. There is also an exclusive partnership with Google, and RCOM announced partnerships with Whatsapp, Twitter in India. Twitter and RCOM has launched a Reliance Twitter access pack.
5. RCOM will move 9500 employees to partner roles.
2G is inking GSM Intracircle roaming arrangements. The first such agreement is with Aircel. These will increase RCOM’s national 2G footprint by 10,000 base stations. All other agreements will be completed by the second quarter of this financial year
6. The RCOM-Reliance Jio deal. Jio will utilize fibre across RCOM’s intercity fibre optics network. IT will have reciprocal access to Reliance Infocomm’s infrastructure in the future. This is the ‘first’ such agreement between the two companies (which means that more deals are being discussed).
7. Industry is facing virtual consolidation. Pricing power is coming back, and there are improvements in RPM. RCOM is rationalizing Prepaid tariffs, by removing free minutes and improving tariffs by 20%.
8. Revenue contribution of data- Wireless growth is 2.5%, but the growth of GSM and Data businesses are growth engines. 64% of wireless revenue for RCOM. One year ago, it was 59%, moving up 500 basis points as a contribution of GSM and Data.

Quoting Mr.Gurdeep Singh (President CEO, Wireless Business, Reliance Communication)
We changed course and aligned go to market strategy to as 3G metro, 3G lit markets and non-3G markets, relooking pricing, branding, distribution, and kept the go to market elements differently for all three markets. Quarter on quarter of GSM+Data is going up. We had consciously taken a call that CDMA network will be a high speed data network, by being a dominant player in the dongle market, and make an effort to bring branded handsets into the smartphone market. We will make efforts with HTC and Blackberry, and another few announcements are planned. What’s good about CDMA device ecosystem is that it is CDMA+GSM.
We don’t rule out rolling out EVDO+GSM phones.

The GSM + Data has grown 6% quarter on quarter in terms of revenues. We have been ahead of the industry growth in this segment in the last 3 quarters. We gained 100 basis points in revenue market share, and have an accelerated growth path. A large part of the revenue comes from 2G Internet (GPRS), and in light of some operators who have given up spectrum in some circles, which is increasing opportunity for RCOM in these circles. We’re seeing traction in that direction. GSM+data, the growth will be on data.

We’re not late with the ICR arrangements. Now that the hypercompetitive stage is behind, there is a good reason for us to consolidate our position. We’ll be smart enough to go for revenue corridor, data corridor. We want to get to the market quickly, make a good case to deploy our own assets.

2300 MHz needs far more sites than a 2G footprint, should Reliance Jio have an ambition to be a pan-India operators. Ours is a large portfolio of towers, and many of the towers in the main cities are fibre-ised.

We are in advanced stages of discussions to lease out towers to Reliance Jio.Our objective is to migrate customers to CDMA smartphones in the CDMA segment. We’ve raised prices of CDMA handsets. The attempt is to get a better quality customer. We’ll see the complete bleed stopping in CDMA in the next two quarters. The bleed is coming to a stagnation, and it will contribute as we populate more CDMA smartphone users.Growth in GSM+data will outperform the market.

Powering the next wave of revenue growth in Indian telecom

As per latest stats from Gartner, India’s mobile services market is expected to grow eight per cent to Rs 1.2 trillion in 2013 but will account for only two per cent of the worldwide mobile services revenue as operators are struggling to increase profit margins. The revenues from mobile services stood at Rs. 1.1 trillion in 2012. According to Gartner, mobile connections in India are expected to grow to 770 million in 2013, up 11 per cent from 712 million connections in 2012. In current circumstances, the Indian telecom market will account for 12 percent of worldwide mobile connections, but just 2 percent of worldwide mobile services revenue (in constant USD) in 2013

Some of the factors are which are hurting the Indian Telcos significantly
• The Mobile ARPU hasn’t shown any pace in growth over some time now even though the drop has been arrested by the operators. Thus operators are not adding incremental revenues. The ARPU of GSM mobile operators have declined by up to 24% during the period between 2008 and 2011
• Over the top service providers such as Facebook and WhatsApp are eating into the SMS cash cow.
• The legislative and regulatory uncertainties over taxes and other payments and agreements are bleeding the operators.
• With the Metros and Tier 1 cities hyper connected, the next wave of growth would be the rural hinterlands – However, further rural expansion of mobile services will come at a cost.

Indian Telcos are looking at mobile broadband services to be the next wave of revenue growth. Coupled with innovative solutions and services, associations which cut through different other eco-systems (media transmission) and local mobile apps which is key to break thru the multi-lingual geographies – Telcos are putting in place, strategies for addressing the data revolution. While India plays catch up with the rest of the world in terms of mobile broadband adoption, telecom operators need to think of growing the top line through innovative services. A report on Indian telecom authored by AT Kearney, states that non-voice revenues of mobile operators will increase to 27 per cent by 2015 from 14 per cent in 2011, of which about 15-20 per cent will come from mobile data, which is expected to grow at 126 per cent. The voice revenues will decrease to 73 per cent from 86 per cent during the same period. Proliferation of smart devices is accelerating this shift towards data. In 2008, only 3.8 per cent of handsets sold in India were smart phones. By 2011, this had increased to 8.1 per cent and is further expected to grow to 25 per cent by 2016

Relevant Applications for various segments are being put forth and with the launch of 4G and increasing reach of 3G services, the data revolution is about to roll in. Innovation in utility apps that help bring efficiencies in a consumer’s life will bring in sustained revenue and will be relatively more difficult to replicate by new entrants. While social and video apps are doing extremely well in India, it is time to look beyond these and deliver apps that can have a sustained business model. India has a phenomenal pent up demand for mobile broadband and local mobile apps that solve everyday problems for consumers.

Is Apple reliving Nokia? (Part II)

This is the second part of a two part blog on Apple reliving the mistakes that Nokia made 4-5 years back. Read Part I here.

Both Nokia (2007) and Apple (2012-13) were trying to time and control consumer preferences in terms of the features and the screen. Conversely, that was akin to letting the competition in thrugh the back door. Instead of creating the future by out-innovating on the feature roadmap – Both the companies were possibly trying to amass the cost benefits from standardized feature formats.

Tim Cook’s comment on this issue, “Our competitors have made some significant tradeoffs in many of these areas to ship a larger display. We would not ship a larger display iPhone while these tradeoffs exist. Some customers value large screen size. Others value other factors such as resolution, color quality, white balance, reflectivity, power consumption, compatibility of apps, and portability.”

The strongest parallel is how both companies started fighting the consumer preference for larger displays at the peak of their profitability… and then dug in as margins began eroding rapidly. Sample this: Phablets as a segment are already likely to make up more than 15% of smartphone market in 2013 – And Apple chooses to give this market a miss. At the peak of its prowess, Nokia executives talked about the performance trade-offs of big-screen phones: power consumption troubles plaguing big-screen phones; surveys showing that most consumers prefer smaller models. On and on and on, an endless stream of justifications and carefully constructed defenses, lecturing consumers about what they should want to buy. Do you see the pattern?

Apple already has a well learnt lesson – the iPad Mini which was sacrilegious in terms of Steve Jobs’ definition of a tablet is the one that is holding the fort for Apple against the medium/low cost Androids.

Has Apple hit the peak or is it a seasonal variation?

Secondly, Apple’s smartphone market shares now seem to be on the wane with Androids from Samsung doing the pincer attack – both from the top end and the economy smartphones. As smartphone penetration moves from early adopters to mass-market and laggard consumer segments, the smartphone as a product will be less dependent on technical superiority, and more dependent on reliability and value – and it is Apple’s market to loose. (The gainers will mostly be the ZTE, Huawei and Alcatels of the world). As reported by Juniper, Samsung’s smartphone volumes are 2X that of Apple’s. AllianceBernstein predicts that Apple’s market share in smart phones will fall to about 12% this quarter, compared to 23% in the same quarter of 2012. Further, the firm predicts that Apple’s market share may fall into single digits next quarter. IDC’s Q1 market shares also show Apple slowing down on its growth trajectory (YoY).

Apple needs to look at the next evolution of iPhone – the mid level low cost iPhone. The iPhone 5S is already confirmed to be only an incremental over the iPhone5 – and is not going to incite mass hysteria as iPhones normally have done. A low cost iPhone could also be critical for Apple especially because ABI estimates the low cost smartphone market will more than triple, in devices sold, between now and 2018 whereas the mid-range will grow at only (roughly) 50%.

For the present, Apple and Tim Cook look to be in a denial state – which is further going to bleed Apple. The high margin strategy is a great things for share holders – but then market presence and numbers is quite another thing. For the love of Apple, I hope it doesn’t going the Nokia way.

Addendum: Just read that Apple may finally be looking at iPhone low cost model and saw a couple of photos as well. Will this turn the tide or is the initiative lost already

Addendum 2: A further validation of loss of Apple’s grip in the smartphones segment is Apple’s declining profit share of the global smartphone industry. Between Q1,2012 and Q1, 2013, Apple’s profit shares of the global smartphone industry declined from 74% to 57%.

Is Apple reliving Nokia? (Part I)

This is the first of a two part blog on Apple reliving the mistakes that Nokia made 4-5 years back.

In 2007, Nokia was the biggest thing in the mobile phone market. It held 60% of the global smartphone market and more than 40% of the overall handset market. Its handset operating margins briefly topped 25%, something that was thought to be impossible in the phone business. In the summer of 2007, Nokia released the N95 – a 2.4” screen dual slider phone with a 5MP camera which in 2007 was a package that couldnot be bettered. N95 went on to create a roar in the markets – but imperceptibly Nokia’s slide was beginning. 3 months after Nokia launched N95, Apple launched iPhone and the rest is history.

The initial iPhone and even the early Samsung phones played on the large screen format – 3.2” – 3.5” and the likes. Nokia’s response to the first smartphones, was a bettered N95 – the N96 – crammed with more features which failed to tickle the market. Touch was catching on – and Nokia was lethargic in its reaction. In an age when customers were falling head over heals in love with the iPhone, Nokia was lamenting the iPhone on subjects such as 2MP Camera and lack of Bluetooth and loaded up the 2.6″ N96 to fightback (in vain). By the time, Nokia responded with the 5800 XpressMusic, it had fallen behind on its tracks. It repeated the mistake with N97 – a large screen which was woefully resistive – in an era when the iPhone3GS ruled and the Androids were beginning to fly. Nokia was edged out of the market – and had fallen behind. Nokia’s next releases N900, N8 failed to woo customers clamoring for the iPhone.

2013 – Apple’s incredible run through from 2007 onwards is slowly running out of steam and gross margins had peaked in early 2012. Apple played economies of scale on standard screen sizes to keep its BOM (Bill of Materials) cost low – driving operational efficiencies in production. However, they seem to have been reading the market wrong as the era of large screen devices was stepping up considerably against the 4” iPhone. Premium buyers were increasingly flocking to the 4.5” segment smartphones and the 5.5”+ phablet space and Apple’s roadmap to large screens is already a couple fo years behind.

The sense of déjà vu is not wasted – as Apple repeats the same mistakes in 2013 that Nokia made in 2007.

Continues to Part II

SMS- The Operator cash cow is dying. Time for telcos to wake up & smell the data coffee.

As SMS celebrates its 20th anniversary , Chat apps are overtaking SMS communication globally. The Operator cash cow is dying. Time for telcos to wake up & smell the data coffee.

A new study by Informa loads the dice up for Chat apps. For the first time, more messages are being sent via applications such as iMessage, WhatsApp and Viber than traditional texting. Messages sent using such apps outnumbered those sent through carrier-based SMS in 2012 and the lead is expected to widen this year as chat apps send twice as many messages as texting. Although traditional SMS has a larger user base, iMessage, WhatsApp or other chatting apps are sending more texts per user, giving them the momentum. Informa estimates that on an average, a chat app user sends 32.6 messages per day, versus just five for SMS. This despite there being 3.5 billion SMS users compared to 586 million among the top six messaging apps surveyed by the researchers.

Mirroring this sentiment, Ovum estimates that Indian telecom operators may lose $3.1 billion in SMS revenues by 2016. In 2012, the Indian telecom industry lost close to $781 million in SMS revenues, as mobile telephony subscribers increasingly used social messaging apps for quick communication. According to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the number of monthly SMS sent per GSM subscriber fell by 5.62 per cent to 36 for the three months ended September 2012 from 38 in the year ago timeframe. For CDMA users, this number was marginally up to 25 during the same period. Industry watchers believe that there is a secular fall in SMS revenues for both CDMA and GSM operators.

There are a couple of reasons that are driving the consumer growth in the chat apps segment
1. As smartphones outnumber dumb feature phones, app-based messaging is set to eclipse texting. The next evolutionary step is likely to be calling from Facebook, now in limited roll-out, and other social networks.
2. In addition to being cheaper, these apps are more interactive as compared to the traditional SMS. (We could see the popularity of messaging apps wane if they decide to charge for the service. WhatsApp, for instance, is reportedly considering a paid 99 cents a year subscription.)

The demise of SMS is perhaps most symptomatic of the evolution of communications underway. First was the voice call, which largely vanished as texting became common. As SMS slowly declines as a significant revenue opportunity, mobile Internet (broadband or narrowband) is steadily growing as a key revenue generator.

Carriers, globally are playing to the changing notes, and are giving away unlimited texting on data plans. The intent is to convert dwindling SMS revenues into a broadband revenue opportunity. Indian telecom operators seem to be cognizant of this shift. They are increasingly co-bundling free messengers and content services to push data usage as an alternative to cascading SMS revenues. Last year, Reliance Communications tied up with WhatsApp and Facebook, enabling its GSM customers to use the two services for Rs 16/month. Aircel, too, has taken the leap by tying up with Nimbuzz. Others have started this integration – Nokia recently launched a new phone, Asha210, which has a dedicated WhatsApp button

The Chat platform providers are riding the wave and are collaborating with telecom companies for monetising the chat platforms through operator billing

IDC Q1, 2013: When Smartphones prevailed over Dumbphones

Manufacturers shipped 216.2 million smartphones worldwide in Q1, 2013, compared with 189 million regular cellphones, according to IDC. IDC Q1, 2013 numbers compare facorably to 402.4 million units in the Q1,2012 (YoY) and down from 483.2 million units in the Q4, 2012.Smartphones thus made up 51.6 percent of the 418.6 million mobile phones shipped. The shift to a global majority of smartphones is now being driven by consumers in developing countries such as China, India and Indonesia.

Samsung retains the smartphone crown taking 32.7% of the market shipping out 70.7 million smartphones – thus becoming the defacto Android standard. Samsung’s up 61% over a year earlier.Apple slipped in its numbers to close Q1, 2013 at 17.3% of the smartphone market share with 37.4 mln units. Apple’s market share market share fell to 17% from 23% a year earlier. Samsung’s dominance of the smartphone markets is so superior that it ships more smartphones than its next 4 competitors put together.

Total Mobile phone shipments increased 4% YoY driven solely by 41% increase in smartphones compensating 19% drop in dumbphones.

Educomp and Education’s sub prime crisis (Part III)

This is third and concluding part of a series of posts that discuss the Rise and Fall of Educomp track the growth of the prodigal education services company and track the factors that led to its fall. Read Part I and Part II here.

A Capex intensive balance sheet and a diffused sense of direction aside, it was Educomp’s financial wizardry and creative accounting that puts the spotlight on Educomp taking what is clearly a unsustainable basis for business. Educomp formed Edusmart, an ‘unrelated’ company headed by one of Educomp’s senior executives. The new company took over all of Educomp’s newer five-year school contracts, pledged the receivables with banks in return for roughly 75 percent of the amount as a lump sum, most of which it meekly handed over to Educomp. This innovative technique even ended up making its debt disappear for a while. Educomp itself was the guarantor of the bank loans to Edusmart.

The model’s sole purpose seemed to allow Educomp to book three-fourths of a school’s five-year annuity revenue right upfront, thus inflating revenue and profits. Clearly, the move was amied at keeping the securitised debt off Educomp’s books as contingent liability, otherwise the higher leverage ratio would have meant banks wouldn’t lend money for their K-12 schools business. This is why Educomp’s total debt as of March 2012 is just Rs 337 crore, while its total liabilities were Rs 2,148 crore. When Educomp saw growth slowing down because they’d penetrated most premium ICSE and CBSE schools, a better way would have been to educate the market and make itself more sustainable instead of changing their accounting model by using a private company to book revenue upfront.

And just when, you would think the list of follies was closing, Educomp stepped into even more capital-intensive setup by deciding to buy the land on which to put up its schools instead of long-term leases like most competitors. Schools are valued on the basis of their cash flows, not land banks. Because whatever the land’s real value, on the school’s books it can only be notional because it can’t ever be de-linked and sold. Today, the 47 schools run by Educomp have nearly 50,000 seats between them, filled with only 22,000 students.

In India any educational services company should be a private and not public listed business. While listing might bring capital, it will inevitably also force businesses to take unsustainable steps to drive higher growth and valuation. In Educomp’s case it was a combination of poor execution, lack of adequate planning and oversight, and overreach as its businesses grew at a faster pace than its management capability.

Lately and Belatedly Educomp seems to have realized its mistakes. Post a $155 million infusion by International Finance Corporation, Proparco and Mount Kellett – Educomp seems to be focusing on a transformation plan that seeks to focus the company’s attention on two primary businesses: The content-based Smart Class and the asset-backed K-12 schools. Most other businesses will be sold off progressively.

Since July last year Educomp has sold off its stake in Eurokids, a pre-school chain and raised Rs 22 crore for its online learning subsidiary authorGen in a funding round led by private equity firm Kaizen. Pearson is likely to acquire its entire stake in the loss making IndiaCan venture imminently. Also up for sale are Educomp’s majority stake in coaching firm Vidyamandir Classes and test preparation company Gateforum.

But would that be enough? I guess not. Educomp will find it difficult to bounce back to its former glory – the market today is more crowded and perhaps more specialized. Educomp will be one of the bigger players (perhaps the biggest), but the markets would have split into fragments – all of which Educomp will not recover.

Reproduced from Article on Forbes: The Rise and the Fall of Educomp (April 8, 2013)