Michael Mace has written what has to be one of the clearest market comparison articles I've read in a long time. Over on his blog he's went into some wonderful cultural comparisions of the European and American marketplaces for mobile technology. Ever wondered why Nokia "has Rock Star status" in Europe yet is "lost in the crowd of semi-anonymous Euro-brands" in the US? Why number portability is king? And why not to ask a European Operator about MMS revenue?
Read on in the full article.
The two biggest problems with phones in America seem to be the low population densities (so it's uneconomical to have massive coverage with expensive up-to-date phone networks) and the stupidity of the phone networks there.
The low population density, caused by those wide open spaces with huge gaps between small towns, means the USA is stuck permanently behind Asia and Europe in terms of phone technology, service coverage and user uptake because there's far less money to be made per square kilometre in America, yet the operating costs are the same per square kilometre of coverage anywhere in the world.
The vanity of the US phone networks led to real blunders such as excluding SMS text messages from outside the user's network, which destroyed most of the purpose of text messages. They did this to promote their own networks, but in doing so simply destroyed a massive potential revenue stream. I don't know why but they seemed to have trouble with the concept that under certain circumstances co-operation between rivals could benefit everyone.
The low population density... read the atricle.
"The low population density... read the atricle."
He claims density doesn't matter, but the only example he gives looks at Norway as if it was an isolated market and compares it to the whole of America. It's not a fair comparison and it's not an isolated market, it's part of Europe and as a whole Europe (and Asia) have much higher population densities than America.
It's the same density that lets Europe still have a thriving railway network while America's has been replaced by cars, because we have enough people travelling short enough distances as they're less spread out.