US : Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "The Top 25 Mobile Service Opportunities for the Consumer Market 2008 - 2010" report.

In this new report, 3G ranks the top mobile consumer service opportunities beyond speech and messaging. The report offers insight of high value for mobile services prioritising and planning - and for mobile strategy work at large - providing outlook, drivers, constraints, service features and details for each of the current top 25 consumer market opportunities.

From the vast number of mobile service opportunities, THE 3G keeps track of and analyses the ‘at any time’ 200 most promising service possibilities. From this the top consumer service opportunities have been identified and presented in this report. The services have been ranked according to forecasted global scale and growth rates. Among the top 25 services figure many new, promising services with growth rates in the range 50 to 120 per cent.

The report distinguishes itself from other forecast reports in the mobile field. Rather than extrapolating current trends, THE 3G maintains an updated understanding and representation of the mobile field by monitoring and pulling together information and insight from a wide range of mobile-centric resources. From this, forecasts are made based on how technology, industry and market conditions are considered to impact growth of the individual service opportunity. The forecast data has further been calibrated utilising publicly available forecast data.

The report is written for strategic management, business analysts, market researchers, market planners, product managers, partnering and service portfolio managers and other key individuals at enterprises targeting the mobile field.

The Mobile Business Landscape

The mobile business landscape is in rapid change. It is characterised by a high level of innovation, but also by uncertainty about the way ahead and future service directions.

A high number of parallel changes are taking place in the mobile business landscape, with the Technology side foremost characterised by emergence of many enabling technologies, ongoing convergence and higher network capacities. The Market side is characterised by mobile increasingly being integrated into people’s lives and increasingly individual and diverse mobile usage. The Market Offerings side is characterised by increasingly potent services and devices, emergence of the long tail and consumer brands increasingly populating mobile offerings. The Industry side is characterised by intensified competition, ongoing structural changes and an expanding mobile ecosystem.

Complexity and Services Constraints

The mobile business landscape has over time become extremely complex, with many forces at play. While there is a range of emerging and maturing mobile technologies and high enthusiasm about mobile possibilities in the market and industry, there are a number of factors hampering growth. Of these, THE 3G views the following factors to be the most important negative forces. Combined, they severely constrain mobile growth and the growth potential of individual service opportunities.

On the Technology side

- Varying Handset Characteristics: Mobile devices’ variations in support for services-enabling standards, as well as in presentation capabilities and characteristics, make service and content production overly resource consuming.

- Battery Constraints: The capacity limitations of handset batteries will continue to constrain usage of mobile multimedia services.

On the Market side:

People’s Ability to Absorb New Services. Limitations in people’s ability and willingness to adopt new behaviour and lack of comprehension of new offerings hamper the overall adoption rate of new mobile services.

New Services Requiring Phone Replacements. Even with today’s rapid phone replacement rates, it takes years from a new technology is launched in the market till a majority of phones in use satisfactorily support that technology.

On the Market Offerings side:

- Prices: There is an upper limit to how much consumers are willing to pay for mobile services in total. Consumers may be prepared or persuaded to pay for some additional mobile services, but not for many.

- Usability. Usability issues, caused by immature standards, varying handset capabilities, inconsistent navigation, small screens, latency, etc, contribute to disappointing user experiences.

On the Industry side:

- Immature Mobile Ecosystem: Several important parts of the mobile ecosystem are still immature, hampering efficient delivery of many types of services.

- Complexity of Business: The mobile industry has become immensely complex. The overall complexity slows the speed at which operators and other players can push forward.