Mobile Apps, advertising light up 4G VAS market potential, report says

Mobile applications and advertising are the leading mobile value-added services (VAS) in the pre-LTE market, according to a new market report.

However, the introduction of LTE alone does not bring about big change, as there are expected to be only around 185 million LTE subscribers across the globe against roughly 7.19 billion mobile-cellular subscriptions by the end of year 2013.

In-demand research report “Mobile Value-added Services (VAS) in 4G: Market Analysis and Forecasts for LTE-based VAS 2013 – 2018” elaborated by Mind Commerce Publishing LLC, which was recently published by Market Publishers Ltd gave fresh insights into the evolving space.

A transformation is expected to take place over the years, when certain major mobile VAS applications will created a strong market position for the network carriers, the report says.

Network operators are seeking to develop new revenue streams to grow their businesses. Some existing (concerns over-the-top (OTT) service providers) and emerging threats (direct (peer-to-peer) communications) pose great challenges to carriers.

To deal with a threat of “dial around” VoIP over Wireless OTT network, operators offer their own “dialable” VoIP. They also need to offer rich communications suite (RCS) as a multimedia VAS application to withstand the OTT competition.

Empirix, Samsung, OpenCloud, Tropo and Openmind Networks are cited by the reports as some of the most prominent companies in the global VAS market.

The report offers an insightful overview of the global market for VAS in 4G. It provides an in-depth assessment of the current state of LTE and examines VAS in the post LTE era, contains comprehensive analyses of various VAS application categories, presents insightful overviews of different country-specific markets with a detailed look at the infrastructure, spectrum and the competitive landscape in the countries under consideration.

The report discusses the most important trends and issues with respect to the VAS market, contains conclusions and offers recommendations for players, besides presenting a vendor analysis from selected companies. In addition, the report outlines prospects for the future development of the VAS market.

VAS application categories covered in the study include: mobile data, voice over LTE (VoLTE), rich communication suite (RCS), mobile advertising, API-based apps, social networking, coupons and loyalty, geo-location, mobile gaming, mobile virtual goods, video, TV, and second screen, mobile health, mobile entertainment, machine-to-machine (M2M), connected vehicles, public safety, messaging (non RCS) and small cell targeted advertising.