Thank you very much.
The name is Ante Rupcic, and I'm with Wind Mobile.
Wind Mobile is a relatively new market entrant. We are the leading new-entrant mobile 3G and 3G+ provider. We have service in all the key cities: Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton. We keep expanding our coverage. Our focus up until now has been on coverage and providing some key services, including mobile broadband.
I'm here today to talk about mobile and mobile commerce in particular. Let me start by talking about some general trends. The future of mobile is about applications. There is going to be an application for just about everything. The mobile app market is clearly one of the fastest-growing consumer markets ever.
For mobile commerce in particular, markets in Japan and South Korea, for example, show us some of the possibilities—and I'll share some examples with you shortly. Mobile Internet shopping in Japan exceeds $10 billion annually, and there's an expectation that 15 billion mobile ticketing transactions will happen in western countries by 2014.
Essentially, your mobile phone will become your wallet. Of course, it's already your camera, your computer, your reader, and your game console. The possibilities for the mobile phone are endless.
Wind Mobile believes that in the next three years, every retail business should have a mobile application or site to sustain or grow market share. The caveat, or the important point to focus on, is that to develop mobile presence, you must consider some critical factors: intuitive navigation, accurate search capability, a pleasing design, enticing merchandising, and easy and frictionless checkout when you buy things with your phone.
Currently, Wind Mobile sells content through its mobile portal. We sell to all subscribers, and we bill on a pay-per-use basis. We deal in all sorts of content types: ring tones, full music tracks, wallpaper, and games. We're looking at video clips now and songs. We are considering applications in TV streaming. We intend to continue that offering by bringing in as many partners as we can. We have something called the service delivery platform, which essentially enables ease of charging and revenue share between our back-end systems and our new partners. We offer our partners a standard-charging API to connect any of these new partners. This ease of connection will facilitate new music, new games, and new applications from all of our different partner networks. It will also facilitate micro-purchases of many types.
The other area we're looking at very diligently is near field communications, or NFC, which will facilitate the mobile wallet. Currently, there is an initiative called EnStream, which is an M-commerce consortium between Bell, Telus, and Rogers, and we are going to be invited into that consortium.
We believe firmly that industry coordination is a must, because it's about standardization and end-to-end ease of use. There are challenges with any technology. With NFC, we see new SIM cards, or identity cards, being required. We see new devices with specific chips and new applications. This is ideal for any point of sale with NFC, and currently we're discussing this with a number of venders. The other advantages are over-the-air credit, debit, prepaid, and loyalty cards. You get coupons and promotions and all sorts of gifting opportunities for mobiles.
The other area that we're looking at now is QR/2D codes and scanners. Essentially, you point your phone's camera at a 2D bar code, and you instantly take yourself as a consumer to extended information: websites, video content, maps, social media, and contact information. The consumer does not need to type a thing. It's a very user-friendly engagement. It also facilitates on-the-move bargain-hunting and price comparison. Once you scan your 2D code, you can compare whatever's on the Internet.
You can shop with these 2D codes. For example, when I was in South Korea a little while back, I walked into a subway. On the subway wall, there was a 2D grocery market with different grocery items with 2D bar codes. You take your phone and you take pictures of the codes you want, or the fruit or vegetables you want to buy, and that gets itemized in your checkout. You go and buy it on your phone, and it gets delivered to your home by the time you get there. So it's a very interesting example of how to utilize 2D to get all of the things you want.
With M-coupon and M-ticket, you can see the possibilities there. Essentially, you buy a coupon or a ticket with a code that appears on your mobile screen. You go to the entertainment venue where you want to use the coupon or a ticket, and there is a scanner that you point your phone screen at, and your coupon is validated.
As for M-banking, there's a good example of this in North America. I have a colleague who is involved in this initiative. Essentially you can take a picture of a cheque you've received and deposit it remotely. It's a Charles Schwab initiative. It shows you the power of the mobile phone, the mobile screen, and the interesting aspect of mobile banking.
The other aspect that will make this a very powerful formula is mobile local search and location. Location-based services are being used to improve communications and create stronger ties among individuals, communities, and local merchants.
For example, Foursquare is an application that allows you to check in through your mobile phone or reveal your geographical location. Once the application knows your geographical location, retailers can take advantage of that information and provide you with coupons, freebies, and things that are relevant to your current location. It's a very powerful time-based, location-based capability.
To summarize, some of the key challenges for mobile commerce include availability of devices to support NFC. We are in a particular band called AWS, and there are different devices with different bands supported. For our particular application we need AWS-supported devices. Secure payment infrastructure is key: you don't want users to be financially crushed when they use their mobile phone for commerce. Retailers need to embrace this as an enabler. Consumer trust and education are key. You want your consumers to feel comfortable using this and to trust this capability. And of course there's the task of optimizing all commerce sites for mobile screens, given the size of the screen you're using.
Thank you.