Hello,

I'm interested in knowing what are the global average retail prices of
Logos, EMS messages and Ring Tones?

I would also like to know both the highest/lowest you've found and in
which regions.

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Request for Question Clarification by easterangel-ga on 16 Dec 2002 00:19 PST

Hi! I have not found anything on the average global prices. Getting
prices for different SMS content providoers might be the most feasible
solution at this point. Would such an answer be accepted. Just let me
know. :)

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Clarification of Question by lizardnation-ga on 16 Dec 2002 03:31 PST

Hello Easterangel,

What I want is sort of a survey of the prices out there on the various
SMS content web sites in the world. Once you have a good sampling, an
average as well as the most expensive and cheapest will be clearly
visible and needed in a regional table.

For example, after getting the prices of X number of sites, you found
a Logo costs on average of $2, max of $4 and a minimum of $1.  I would
like to know where are those max anx minimum numbers for SMS content
in a table listing them by region.

Nothing fancy or that extensive, just enough to make an educated
decision on how to price content for someone entering into the market
and who needs to know where are the most profitable markets in the
world to position themselves in there. :-)

Thank you.

/Lizardnation

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Request for Question Clarification by lot-ga on 22 Dec 2002 20:04 PST

Hello lizardnation,

I have an average for the MMS pricing would you take that as EMS?, 
(Multimedia Messaging Service vs Enhanced Messaging Service) Currently
working on the Ringtone average, and touched on the logos. Retail
prices for logos and ringtones is straight forward enough, but the MMS
pricing I have is based on the network charge (e.g. cost for users to
send an MMS), as opposed to a content delivery cost e.g. cost to
receive a nice color picture of a lizard. I guess you want the latter?

regards
lot-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by lot-ga on 22 Dec 2002 21:02 PST

Hello lizardnation
hmm in your original questio, you didn't really mean EMS, that was a
typo? I'm a bit slow of the mark, in which case my comment in the
comments section is rather non-sensical!. I guess you would want the
retail cost for 'reverse billing prices' for SMS content delivery,
which depends on the premium placed by the content providers on the
content being sold. Prices range from anywhere from 'free of charge'
e.g. for a weather report (really used as an excuse to push marketing
messages to users phones), and normal cost (charged at standard
network SMS cost ) upto about $2. So I guess the average cost of the
SMS would be from free, to the highest cost the network allows as a
reversed billed SMS.
regards
lot-ga

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Clarification of Question by lizardnation-ga on 23 Dec 2002 05:02 PST

Hello Lot,

I did mean EMS as some services allow you to customize EMS messages
which play the role of mGreetingCards and they're probably charged at
rates which are different than Ring Tones and Logo's.

I would like to get the peeks in pricing of those SMS types and where
as well as the average.  So, it'll be:

1. Max ring tone - geographical region.
2. Min ring tone - geographical region.
3. Max Logo - geographical region.
4. Min logo - geographical region.
5. Max EMS or alternative - geographical region.
6. Min EMS or alternative - geographical region.
7. Average ring tone.
8. Average Logo.
9. Average EMS or alternative.

The scope doesn't include MMS. :-)

/Lizardnation

Hello lizardnation-ga 

I'm a (rather inactive) member of the Wireless world forum (
http://www.w2forum.com ) that contains some market data and metrics
(also purchasable reports). It might be worth joining, as basic
membership is free last time I checked. Only requirement is you need
to be in the telecoms industry to join (which you are re:
MMS/SMS/Ringtones), as they manually approve applications and this
allows you access to members only areas. Site is going through a
revamp at the moment though.

Excerpt:
"Jupiter Research ran a consumer survey in September 2002 exploring
attitudes and behaviour across digital platforms in the UK, France,
Germany, Spain, Italy and Sweden. Results indicate that digital
photography is the MMS application that will have major mass-market
appeal among mobile phone users.

20% of respondents said they'd be interested in using mobile digital
photography, while only 11% would be interested in downloading games
or polyphonic ringtones. 15% also said they'd be interested in
downloading digital music.

In contrast to SMS, the cost of sending a digital picture still varies
among operators and countries: E0.63 (40p) for Orange in the UK, E0.45
(29p) for SFR in France, and E0.52 (33p) for Vodafone in Sweden.
However, the most interesting initiative concerning pricing is coming
from the UK, where T-Mobile has launched an MMS service on an 'all you
can eat' pricing model: for E32 (#20) a month, subscribers can send
unlimited MMS messages.

Contrary to the market for ringtones and logos, which has a specific
appeal to 15-24-year-olds, all age groups and both sexes show interest
in the use of mobile digital photos. According to the survey, 27% of
the 15-24 age group would be interested in using such a service,
compared to 22% of 25-34-year-olds, 18% of 35-44-year-olds and 17% of
45-55-year-olds.

Although younger respondents show the most interest, Jupiter believes
that while pricing for MMS use and equipment remains high they won't
be able to drive growth of the market as they did with SMS. On top of
per-message fees that are twice that of SMS, MMS-enabled handsets
generally cost between E350 and E600 (#223-#383) in Europe, or E100
(#64) for a two-year subscription with an operator. Jupiter estimates
that MMS market growth will come from 24-44-year-olds, who have higher
buying power and spend more on media and entertainment.

Penetration of Sha-mail's mobile photography services in Japan has
grown remarkably fast. Fifteen months after its launch on the J-Phone
network, the operator reports that 47% of subscribers own a mobile
phone with a digital camera. The key to success has been pricing:
per-message prices have been set low at Y8 (4p), and the
camera-enabled handsets needed to send Sha-mail are generally priced
under E100 thanks to heavy subsidies from J-Phone."
'Mobile photography will lead MMS take-up' by Alan Lim 10 Dec 2002
http://www.w2forum.com/item2.php?id=13653

Excerpt:
"The W2F predicts MMS is worth Euro/$ 5.8 billion by 2006 in the
Key16* markets – a figure less than 20% of the current crop of Analyst
predictions. These figures are based on interviews with key executives
within its 3000 strong wireless Industry executive membership and
intensive statistical research.

Beyond the hype, growth in areas such as photo and simple peer-to-peer
messaging, will account for just under 700 million messages each per
month by 2006 in the Key16* markets. The largest markets, in terms of
messages sent per month in 2006, will be the USA (726.8 million),
Germany (324 million) and UK (258.4 million).

Initial adoption will be slow until the majority of prepay handsets
become MMS enabled.

The early adopter category of 20-34 year olds will represent a large
proportion of the initial users. However, by 2006, 15-19 year olds
will constitute the bulk of MMS use in the larger markets (71.2% of
traffic in UK 2006)."
'MMS - The Big Picture'  by the Wireless World Forum
http://www.w2forum.com/item2.php?id=13652

regards
lot-ga

Thanks Lot, that sure is pretty informative.  I'll visit the site and
check out its contents.  Though, being an Amphibian I'm relatively
lazy, so I raised the amount assigned to this question just in case
it'll tingle someone's wish list for the holidays. ;-)

/Lizardnation

ah haa *that's* why your screen name is lizardnation 
Everything makes sense now  :-)

seasonal greetings
lot-ga

Lizardnation,

I couldn't find any information on this topic available freely, but it
was interesting to see that Visiongain has a report on this subject
for about $1599 USD:

http://www.gii.co.jp/english/kt10831_personalisation_toc.html

It looks as if it contains all information you need.

From my own experience with several different US/UK carriers, I would
say that the average price for ringtones is about $2.50, the average
lifetime is 180 days (many providers of this service tag the ringtones
with "expirations" on phones which support it), and the average market
penetration is about 26-30%.

You'll find logos follow a very similar method, I think.  Good luck
with all this stuff, wish I could help more!

Thanks,
arimathea-ga

Hello lizardnation
this isn't what you wanted (hence this is a comment) - But since I
already dug into it, I thought might as well post it.

An excerpt highlighting pricing policy for MMS:
"Essentially, when pricing MMS-based services, operators have three
options:
- 'One price fits all’: set a fixed per-message price, regardless of
the content and size of the message.
- 'Pay for what you use’: price MMS messages in proportion to the size
of the data they contain.
- 'All you can eat’: charge a set amount of money each month in
advance, and allow subscribers to send MMS messages at no further
charge.
So far, most operators have judged that the most important thing is to
get as many people on board as possible. Of the 60 operators that have
launched MMS-based services, over 50 have either gone for the 'one
price fits all’ approach, or for a variant in which two prices are
set: one for messages up to a certain size (generally 30Kbytes), and
another for bigger messages. At present, their risk of carrying very
large messages too cheaply is limited in practice, since the camera
phones which are currently available do not produce pictures which are
bigger than 100Kbytes."
'MMS picture messaging – is the price right?' by John Delaney, Ovum
Principal Analyst 2002, ovum.com
http://www.ovum.com/go/ovumcomments/016489.htm

Excerpt highlighting the average pricing of MMS, particulary in
Europe;
"A consensus is also starting to emerge concerning the level at which
MMS message prices are set – again, particularly in Europe. In most
countries, picture message prices are being set in the range
E0.55-0.65. [ about 56-66 cents ] There are a few European countries
in which prices are set at the lower level of around E0.30, [ about 30
cents ] mainly the lower-income ones such as the Czech Republic and
Turkey. There is also one country in which picture messages are priced
comparatively high: Swisscom in Switzerland charges SwFr1.20 (E0.80).
[ about 81 cents ]
But the limits of price elasticity do not lie very much beyond that.
We know this because the pioneer of MMS, Telenor, set the first
per-message price for picture messaging – at NKr10 (E1.36). Telenor
never billed a single subscriber for picture messaging while the price
stood at this level. And when Telenor did start billing its
subscribers for picture messaging, in November 2002, it immediately
cut its per-message price in half."
'MMS picture messaging – is the price right?' by John Delaney, Ovum
Principal Analyst 2002, ovum.com
http://www.ovum.com/go/ovumcomments/016489.htm

"The average cost to send an MMS message in Europe is currently around
54 cents (U.S.), while the cost in Asia is approximately 36 cents."
'SMS.AC'S POUSTI ADDRESSES MMS MOBILE CONFERENCE IN TAIWAN' Dec 9, 02
SMS.ac
http://www.sms.ac/corporate/pr_120902.htm

UK Network - MMS charge
- T-Mobile MMS @35p 
- 02 @36p
- Vodafone @36p
- Orange @40p. 
Average UK cost = 36.75p (59 cents)
source: Cellular News ( http://www.cellular-news.com/story/7826.shtml
 )

AUSTRALIA network - MMS charge
- Telstra @75 cents
- Vodafone @75 cents
- Optus @75 cents
Australian average = 75 cents (42.2 cents)
source: Mobile Youth (
http://www.mobileyouth.org/news/mobileyouth660.html )

NORWAY network - MMS charge
- Telenor Mobil @0.68 Euro (69 cents)
source: Mobile Youth (
http://www.mobileyouth.org/news/mobileyouth580.html )

regards lot-ga

a GSM operator. www.telsim.com.tr (use the cepMAIL option in the left.)
http://www.telsim.com.tr/cs/cepmail.htm
http://interaktiftest.telsim.com.tr/servlet/cs?RID=3000
ok byes

it is all free . Unlimited SMS