Measuring the Effectiveness of the Strategies used by Mobile Operators in Developing Economies, to address the OTT Challenge

Project Report from the year 2014 in the subject Communications - Multimedia, Internet, New Technologies, , language: English, abstract: Thanks to the advances in telecommunications and mobile computing, smartphones

have emerged as a vital tool for enhanced communication, connectivity and

productivity. With the increased penetration of smartphones and mobile

applications, Over-The-Top (OTT) mobile messaging applications now constitute a

significant threat to mobile network operators¿ SMS-messaging revenues. The

literature available today shows that OTT applications like WhatsApp, Viber,

Facebook Chat, Skype, etc will cost $54 billion lost in revenue to mobile network

operators. As a result, it becomes critical for mobile network operators to put in place

effective strategies that will slow the impact of OTT apps.

This research investigates the pro-active measures that mobile operators have taken

in developing countries to address this challenge and also measures the

effectiveness of these measures in their respective markets.

Data was collected through questionnaires from over 400 pre-paid subscribers in

Accra. The findings of the research show that OTT apps are changing the behaviour

of smartphone users regarding text messaging. The research revealed that more

than half smartphone users send less than 5 SMS messages a day. However, with

the introduction of ¿bundles¿ by mobile operators in Ghana as a strategy to generate

a sustainable average revenue per user seems to be working. Majority of

subscribers perceive data bundle as a cheaper and better option than Pay-As-You-

Go. However, the introduction of SMS bundle seems not to be an efficient strategy

against OTT apps since they are limited to on-net communications only.