Forum: When will UK mobile operators make the return on Premium SMS more appealing?
Link: General - When will UK mobile operators make the return on Premium SMS more appealing?
For premium SMS to become a real revenue stream UK mobile operators need to reduce their ludicrous cut on premuim SMS. We all know it’s a numbers game but in my opinion taking 40-50% of premium SMS revenue is preventing companies from investing further in premium SMS services. With such high outpayments going to mobile operators services like “PayForIt” and “PayPal for mobile” are becoming increasing popular where payments are heading back to debit/credit cards.
The question is:
1) Does anyone think premium SMS outpayments at likely to change at any point in the future?
2) What mobile billing methods are going to succeed?
3) Does Google have a mobile payment system in the works?I remember reading that all UK operators decided to waiver charges for all premium SMS charity donations made for the Tsunami appeal back in 2005. Can anyone validate this story and has this been the only instance where mobile operators have not taken their cut?
Nasser posed this question on the SMS Text News forums. Have you got a perspective?
Update: See Nick Ris of MX Telecom’s response at the above link — he’s written a comprehensive answer to Nasser’s questions. Thanks Nick!
Ah bugger, you have to register to reply.
Here’s my 2 pence. Service providers think of mobile operators as the Visa or Mastercard in the payment scheme. They are wrong. The mobile phone operator is the Tescos, the Marks and Spencer, the Wall*mart. They are the people running the retail estate, the shop, and the shop is the phone screen and the network it runs off.
Service providers usually pipe up at this point and say they are doing all the advertising and promotion, getting the customers in etc. I’d reply - big deal, so do Cilit Bang. But Cilit Bang rely on the consumers of their product being able to actually get it from somewhere.
Now, how many retail environments can you think of where the shopkeeper only gets 22% of the total ex-vat price?
Posted by John on October 17th, 2007 at 10:14 am.hey Ewan, where/when did smstextnews Forums come from? Cool idea. What is the protocol now? Do we respond to the blog entries or are the forums the correct place for us to have discussions.
steve
Posted by Steve Procter on October 17th, 2007 at 10:15 am.Counting Premium SMS volume is a complete pain in the ass requiring trillion reports etc etc. There are so many providers, aggregators, short codes, promotions etc etc. Vice versa there are too few people to do the work what with trying to strike up new relationships, calm down current relationships and look for new premium revenue streams. Also so many providers are scammers or con artists that a lot of time is taken to close them down, issue warnings or “point” them in the right direction.
The networks get asked all the time to waive premium charges for good causes but the only one I directly know of was Children in need (or Red Nose day - it was sometime ago). In the end it was such a pain in the ass that we made a sufficient donation to make the problem go away. You also need all Networks to buy into the cause for there to be consistency. Each Network already supports charitities directly so rarely go outside there yearly nominated ones.
Finally - the Networks need approxiamtely average 25 - 30% EBITDA on all revenue streams to satisfy ALL stakeholders including owners, directors, future projects etc etc. Unfortunately I have not worked in premium sms world (for a network) for 3 years now but thought the above might be of help
Posted by Archiegitdog on October 18th, 2007 at 6:36 am.Visa and Mastercard do very well thankyou very much out of 1.79% from all our credit card transactions. So for the mobile operators to need 25-30% out of premium rate (more on the lower tariffs) is utter nonsense.
At iTAGG we’ve provided a premium sms gateway for small businesses and other organisations, charities, etc for many years, and I know hand on heart that if one day the operators woke up and all suddenly said they only want 2%, that iTAGG’s premium sms traffic would multiply exponentially overnight from all sorts of genuine businesses/charities. So the question is, do the operators want 30% of £100 or 2% of £1million?
steve
Posted by Steve Procter on October 18th, 2007 at 10:30 am.Hi Steve
That sounds like a PR issue, maybe we should have a chat some time.
Patrick
Posted by Patrick on October 18th, 2007 at 3:22 pm.