Mobile 365 is having a stellar year so far, This month, the company announced that its total short messaging service (SMS) and multimedia messaging service (MMS) traffic for the first quarter of 2006 was 8.4 billion messages transported, representing a 40% year-over-year increase. In 2005, the company delivered more than 25 billion messages—a rate of more than 2 billion messages monthly.

Speaking to Asian Channels at the Mobile Content World Asia, held from the 4-6 April in Singapore, Matthew Talbot, managing director, Asia, Mobile 365 notes that music and polyphonic ringing tones especially have really changed the mobile content scene in Asia, not only dominating the market in the region, but driving it.

"Mobile penetration compared to PC penetration is very high in Asia," he says.
In addition, he also expects the take-up rate of 2.5 and 3G in the region to double in the next couple of year.

Talbot adds that it is a really exciting time for the mobile content market in Asia and that Mobile 365 is in the thick of things, and has an aggressive business strategy for the region. In Asia, Mobile 365 has offices in Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi (their newest office in the region), Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, and Taipei.

"Things are really moving forward for us in the region. Our new Indian office for example, is a humongous step forward," notes Talbot.

In fact, the company has ambitious plans for the Indian market, the fastest growing and second largest mobile market in Asia, and one of the biggest in the world with 57.4 million mobile subscribers.

Mobile 365 launched its operations in Gurgaon, a satellite town of New Delhi that plays home to numerous Indian telecoms and services industry bigwigs India late last month, and at an event held in there, showcased comprehensive plans for penetrating the Indian marketplace.

In addition to securing shortcodes for companies such as MSN for SMS Instant Messaging and Hotmail, Mobile 365 has also secured a shortcode—6365—which can now be used to help content companies, brands, and corporations launch in the Indian market. Mobile 365 also offers access to various operators, which enables services to be deployed on STK/OTA, as well as GPRS/BREW portals.

"The Indian mobile market is growing at a fast pace and offers exciting opportunities for domestic mobile operators looking to monetize content, as well as international content companies seeking expansion into growth markets," says Talbot. "We believe that mobile messaging and WAP services—such as music, games, and entertainment—will be key revenue drivers for the Indian operators over the next few years. We have chalked out our strategy for penetration in Indian markets and are quite upbeat about it."

He adds that India is a great market for the mobile industry, but he notes that payouts to mobile content providers are very low and therefore ROI can often not be justified. "In China for example, mobile content providers enjoy 80-85% ROI, and ROI of course is key to driving the growth of mobile content.

Talbot admits that there are challenges in the industry which still have to be overcome such as no standardized revenue share payback to content providers for all markets, additional operator "carriage" costs which vary in each country and therefore makes it very difficult to launch services in some countries, and no standardization of payment terms amongst the carriers in Asia - "which can be very frustrating for the content providers." In addition, he adds that the time to market also varies in each market.

"In Asia, mobile content is definitely here to stay, but there is no denying that there are some issues that need to be solved such as the penetration of WAP-enabled phones and services," says Talbot.

Yet, Talbot is very upbeat about the mobile messaging data services and content industry, saying that Mobile 365 will continue to see and experience tremendous traffic growth in the region.
His advice to mobile content providers? "Keep mobile content simple, keep interfaces simple, and make the experience for the mobile users seamless and worthwhile."