B2B2C is a long and ugly acronym, but it's putting Neomobile on course for 100m euro turnover. ME quizzed the Italian firm...
In the early noughties a bunch of companies got very rich very fast on the back of ringtones, wallpapers and other mobile self-expression products. When that market contracted many of those same companies withered and died.
But not all.
A few of them re-focused their D2C operators on new geographical regions and applied the VAS knowledge acquired to the growing B2B space.
They used their knowledge of customer acquisition and marketing to help brands and operators cement their own end-user relationships.
Few have been more successful than Italy's Neomobile.
It's probably fair to say that Neomobile is less well-known than its country counterparts Boungiorno, Dada and Flycell.
But only because of its relative lack of visibility in Anglophone markets. This is pretty unfair, as Neomobile's transition from pure D2C to all-round mobile VAS specialist has been remarkable.
Last month, there was a dramatic reminder of this when Neomobile confirmed that its revenues leapt 60 per cent in Q1 2010, putting the firm on course for 100m euro revenue in 2010.
But it's not just turnover: Neomobile is in profit too.
The company's core D2C business remains solid, thanks to significant market shares in Spain, Brazil and Italy – and the launch of new services in Mexico, France and India.
Meanwhile the B2B2C business (as Neomobile prefers to term it) is flying.
Neomobile bought Spain's Arena Mobile in 2008 to further its activities here, and has also launched interesting new services such as VIP Power, a collaboration with Mobango that builds custom app stores for operators.
In the marketing space, the firm launched Neomobile Marketing Solutions, which has already created wireless campaigns for Illy, Coca Cola, Smirnoff and others.
ME caught up with Neomobile's CEO Gianluca D'Agostino...
What's behind the move to B2B2C, as you call it?
The old models are disappearing. You can't just run old-fashioned portals for operators – that's all going. Even Buongiorno and Zed have moved on and are focusing on CRM and loyalty and so on. Also, the old Crazy Frog subscription model – that's over too.
But there is a big group of brands and media companies out there that are looking to mobilise their content, and don't know how. They need a knowledgeable partner with partnerships in place and the ability to provide billing and integration. It's a real opportunity for us.
And they're looking at mobile because of all the extra value it offers over the web. We know who a subscriber is, how much credit they have, what handset they use. On the web, you can't know this.
How much of your revenue comes from B2B2C?
It's around 20 per cent.
This indicates there is still a big D2C market out there. How has it changed?
It used to be ringtones and wallpapers; now it's widgets, apps, ringbacks. It's still a big market. Obviously, you have to look at new geographies now, which is why we opened in India last year, for example.
The other big change is in customer acquisition. We don't do any TV or print advertising any more, and that used to be a huge part of our spend. Everything is digital now.
You have to be flexible with business models. We do bundles and subs, and even things like 24 hour rentals in markets like India. And in Italy you can buy mobile products through online subscriptions.
So how many D2C customers do you have?
Ten million registered, five million active, across 14 countries.
Which other new areas are you expanding into?
We're working with a social network to provide ad and billing services. So if a user wants their pic displayed on the top of the page, for example, they can pay.
In this sense we're providing payments services, but we're not like an mBlox or a Bango; they see just the traffic, but we know what a user does and can build services around it.
We're also creating an ad platform, creating premium mobile web sites with clients which are then included in the network.
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