Mobixell gets $6 million funding

Mobile advertising solutions provider Mobixell Networks has got a cool $6 million fund from Apex Partners, Intel Capital, and SMAC Partners. This fund was raised in the fourth round and Mobixell has raised $29 million to date.

Mobixell is based in California and Israel. The company specializes in delivering mobile advertising solutions and mobile multimedia solutions.

It has a pretty good mobile advertising solution package which includes different modules like messaging, video, WAP, ringback tones, and many more. Its mobile advertising solution can process and optimize a variety of mobile content including images, audio files, video files, and MMS.

Its mobile multimedia solutions include special content production suites for mobile content production, mobile webcast gateway, and other multimedia handling solutions.

Mobixell has also got a pretty impressive client list which includes some famous names like Orange, Vodafone, and O2 among others.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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Will the music industry go mobile?

After newspapers, it seems it’s the turn of the music industry to go mobile. I mean, let’s face it. The music industry is not what it used to be and CD sales have dropped considerably. The industry has stagnated to say the least and going mobile to reinvent itself seems to be the only option left. Thankfully, some artists have already realized that and have taken the next step.

A few months back, we saw Madonna sign a deal with Vodafone wherein Vodafone users were able to listen to the album Hard Candy before it was even released in the market. Similarly, earlier this month, British pop sensation Natasha Bedingfield signed a deal with Verizon and will headline a Verizon VIP tour. Verizon users will have exclusive access to Natasha’s albums and users who download ringtones and other such content will get free tickets to her concert and other such promotional items. Usher Raymond has signed a similar deal with Sony Ericsson which will be the primary sponsor for Usher’s musical tour which is scheduled later this year. Though AT&T is yet to sign such deals with musicians, it has already signed deals with music websites such as Napster and eMusic.

The future, everyone says, is mobile. The dipping sales of compact discs and the alarming growth rate of pirated discs have made musicians take some serious decisions regarding the future and some musicians have already set the precedent. Now, it remains to be seen how quickly others can adapt to this new age medium. What do you say?

Categories: All things mobile phones.

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Vodafone to launch nationwide marketing campaign to promote mobile browsing

If there is one company which is very excited about the future of mobile web, it’s Vodafone. It first started off by slashing its mobile internet tariff by almost 50%, as a result of which you can now get mobile broadband at £15 a month, and now it has announced that it will launch a marketing campaign to encourage people to use mobile internet more often.

This campaign will serve as an eye opener for common public and Vodafone intends to make people realize how easy it is to access the internet from their mobile phones. Vodafone plans to launch a massive, nationwide marketing campaign all through the summer and plans to target train stations, shopping malls, bus stations, live events, and more.

It has started off well by buying media space in train stations all over the country. So, you can expect to see Vodafone ads with the slogan “Travel the mobile internet” in billboards, ticket barriers, and rotating poster boards soon in a train station near you.

It has been announced that the campaign will start off at London’s Kings Cross station and will be run all over the country for more than 250 days.

More than the campaign, I think the price cut will do loads of good to Vodafone’s mobile internet division. Don’t you think so?

Categories: Mobile Web.

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Verizon to buy Alltel

Alright folks; it’s official. Verizon Wireless has stated that it will buy Alltel for $28.1 billion. Verizon has made a deal according to which it will pay $5.9 billion to Alltel to acquire its equity and assume a whopping $22.2 billion of its debt.

This acquisition will make Verizon Wireless the biggest cellular operator in the U.S. Verizon has 66.8 million subscribers now and by acquiring Alltel, it will add another 13.2 million to its subscriber base, thereby making it 80 million subscribers in total. The current number one operator, AT&T, has around 72 million subscribers.

An interesting aspect to this deal is, Alltel is probably the only company in the corporate history of America to have changed ownership so quickly. Last year, Alltel was acquired by the Texas Pacific Group and the private equity arm of Goldman Sachs for a similar price. This year, it has been acquired by Verizon.

Expectedly, this news has not made a big splash in the market as everyone and his mom knew that this was on the cards. This acquisition tale has been going on for years now and finally, it is official. If you remember, Verizon was actually keen to acquire Alltel last year, but Vodafone, its wireless partner, rejected the deal. But then, Verizon has managed to get what it wanted.

I think this is a perfect set up for Verizon for two reasons. First, both Alltel and Verizon use the same technology – CDMA. Second, Alltel has a good subscriber base in areas which are not covered by Verizon currently. So, it will extend Verizon’s network coverage platform. What do you think?

Categories: All things mobile phones.

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A look at India – the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world

India has been the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world for quite some time now. There are already 250 million mobile phone users in India and the number gets increased by 6 million every month, thanks to new users. There are a few reasons behind this impressive growth.

1. Indian economy is on a roll and has had an impressive growth over the past few years. This has increased the purchasing power of the people significantly, especially that of the middle class people. As a result, the 30 million middle class people in India are the target customer segment for mobile companies now.

2. The price range of mobile phones is quite big. You can get low-end mobile phones in the $20 - $30 price range and at the same time you can get high-end mobile phones in the $600 - $800 price range. So, whether you belong to the super rich category, middle class, or lower middle class category, you can get a mobile phone which fits into your budget.

3. There are several major mobile operators in India and there is intense competition in the market. Almost all of them have slashed their call charges, text message charges, and offer a lot of value added services. What this means to the user is, not only can he get a handset at an affordable rate, but he can also afford to keep his phone charges within his budget every month. This has led to more and more people buying mobile phones.

Recent reports predict that India will have a whopping 500 million mobile users by 2010. This is the reason why mobile advertising is considered the next big thing in the Indian market.

Though mobile advertising by third party advertisers is yet to become popular, several mobile operators are already doing it successfully. Notable players like Bharti Airtel, BSNL, Tata Indicom, Reliance, and Vodafone regularly send text messages to their users regarding latest offers, new plans, and other issues.

That said, a few big players have already tried their hands on mobile advertising through third party advertisers and have had a good response. Recently, Hindustan Lever and Coca Cola launched mobile advertising campaigns promoting their products and have had good response rate so far. Since Indians are very active in using features like text message, MMS, and mobile internet, mobile advertisers have tons of choices to come up with personalized mobile advertising campaigns.

All in all, India will be a market to watch out for in the next few years as far as mobile advertising is concerned.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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