When I met Mike Gauba, recently returned from Korea as a Professor and from working throughout Asia as a consultant, he explained to me his marketing theories for 3G.
What really caught my attention, as he was explaining why Telcos have the wrong marketing models, was his assertion that the success of i-mode was an accident - which he used as a point of proof of his theory.
He believes that because i-mode's success was an accident, that this explains why, in his view, it has been unsuccessful outside of Japan. Because, he says, if you cannot understand why you succeeded then you cannot replicate it.
I've asked him to explain his reasoning. But before answering the direct question I thought it important to know exactly what he considers "i-mode" to be.
iCF: First of all can you give us your definition of what "i-mode" is?
Mike Gauba: The official definition of i-mode as stated on NTT DoCoMo’s site is - it is an advanced mobile phone service that has revolutionized wide-ranging aspects of work and leisure in Japan. Offering easy access to more than 92,000 Internet sites, it has attracted more than 44 million subscribers since its introduction in February 1999. The site and subscriber numbers are as on July 2005.
However, the perceived definition of i-mode in fact has been changing since its launch in February 1999.
The definition during the earlier years of its introduction was very much closely tied to PDC P - packet switched overlay network and cHTML - page display standard. Ever since NTT DoCoMo decided to port i-mode to GPRS, it has decoupled the service definition from the underlying network. The definition has had yet another twist. FOMA was perceived to be a 3G equivalent of i-mode. However, this is not true now. i-mode is now offered on on PDC P, FOMA-W-CDMA and GPRS.
One may say i-mode has got transformed from a service into a deployable package of technologies, marketing strategies, implementation rules and procedures.
I guess i-mode is a highly successful brand name that NTT DoCoMo liberally leverages to influence operators into partnerships to expand its footprint. The company with the deepest pockets has been persistently patient with its investments in Europe.
To me i-mode is a data service that piggy backs on voice to achieve quicker and greater penetration. Thus i-mode applications are a compromise for they run on a hardware which is primarily deigned for voice.
Given this scenario, the application has limited synergy with the hardware, hence the value delivered to the user is also limited.
All i-mode applications are in fact secondary, the primary being the voice. The secondary applications typically struggle through out their life cycles for the lack of focus and synergy. In six years, the ARPU of all i-mode services has only reached about 25% of the total ARPU. The ARPU of Blackberry from remote access to email alone is significantly more.
Mike Gauba specializes in designing the success of 3G mobile commerce initiatives. He was last professor at Korea University Business School, where he had the opportunity to develop high technology management theories. He integrated his innovations and the existing theories into a cohesive framework that he successfully applied it to 3G mobile commerce. He has a Ph.D in digital signal processing from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and also has twenty years of experience working for telecom operators like Telstra and consulting companies like Cap Gemini. He is currently consulting to 3G operators, applying and fine tuning his theories for the management of high technology products. Contact: +61 422 144 996.
Next week: Question 2: Why do you believe that i-mode's success was an accident?
Is there an i-mode project or news that you think we should feature? Email tips@imodestrategy.com. Thanks!
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