Mobile Arts sees big opportunities ahead

The fast growing wireless data service market in the country, with six million GSM users recorded in the first quarter of the year alone, has spelled big business for newcomer Mobile Arts, Inc.. a wireless applications services provider (WASP).

With mobile phone users worldwide at 772 million outpacing PC users at less than 400 million, the Filipino-owned company is confident of its niche in the value-added wireless services market.

Figures from the National Telecommunications Commission reveal that mobile subscribers grew four times in the last four years, suggesting 15 to 20 million Filipinos will have mobile phones by 2005.

And according to the UK-based industry analyst Ovum Research, mobile phone users worldwide by that time would number over 1.7 billion.

Mobile Arts services currently revolve around wireless e-mail, which clients Smart Communications and Pilipino Telephone Co. (Piltel) have branded Textmail. After only five months of offering the service, company officials reported that its subscribers have gone up to 350,000 users.

The company projects year-end revenues to reach P15 million. With a paid-up capital of P5 million this year, Mobile Arts has also applied for pioneer status as a WASP from the Board of Investments.

"We have been informed that the BOI management committee has acted favorably on our submission and it will move on to the BOI board on July 12 for final approval," according to Mobile Arts president Ramon Duremdes Jr.

Other services offered by the company include a wireless complement web-based e-mail, with a fully integrated address book.

Working with wireless carriers, Mobile Arts will also target various organizations in different industries. Corporations and other entities with a mobile workforce will be offered a range of services that will enable better communications through electronic messaging and marketing infrastructure.

Users of the company’s solutions pay based on usage. Value-added message are priced at P2.50 per message at the retail level, consistent with the prevailing pricing by mobile carriers.

According to Duremdes, the dotcom shakedown had weeded out unsustainable players, allowing WASP its time in the market. "The current economic difficulties actually represent opportunities to those who could serve the needs of companies pressured to be more efficient and consumers who are foregoing or postponing PC purchases," he said.

WASP serves as a profitable link between telecoms carriers, applications services providers, and infrastructure providers, Revenues for enterprise subscribers to WASP services are projected to reach $12.1 billion globally with revenues from individual subscribers at another $6.5 billion over the next five years.