It wasn’t that long ago that Canadians who went out shopping for a cellphone were looking for a device that would be used primarily to make phone calls.
Now, it’s not enough for a mobile device to simply make calls and receive text messages. Consumers want to know their device can enable them to watch sports highlights, edit work documents and allow them the ability to try and beat their top score on Angry Birds during their subway commute.
For Dan Page, director of content business development for wireless carrier
Telus Corp., ensuring that customers can get access to the latest music, movies and video games on their smartphones is key to the company’s ability to differentiate itself from its competitors.
The ability to customize a mobile device with downloadable content isn’t something that’s new for Telus, the Vancouver-based company has been in the business of enabling downloads to mobile devices since the early days of feature phones when ring tones were considered the ultimate customization tools.
“The first step is to understand how Telus relates to applications and games on mobile devices,” Mr. Page said.
“First and foremost, Telus has been in the business of distributing applications and games a long time, dating all the way back to ring tones when they first evolved on basic WAP sites right up to full fledged HD gaming experiences on some of these new devices.”
It might seem like a cliche, but the reality is that in today’s smartphone industry, content is king. Consumers, now equipped with multifunction mobile devices, expect to be able to access a wide range of services on the go.
Access to premium content is
one of the main reasons why Telus rival BCE Inc. shelled out $1.3-billion to acquire CTV and
why Rogers Communications Inc. was rumoured to be interested in purchasing Maple Leaf Sports and and Entertainment.
In July, Telus signed a two-year agreement with the Canadian Football League that will give Telus’s mobile customers access to live football games from their mobile devices.
Of course, video games are an important part of any carrier’s mobile content offerings.
According to the Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC), more than 7% of Canadians play video games on their smartphones.
But it’s not simply traditional video game audiences — namely young males — who are showing an interest in mobile gaming. According to the ESAC, teenage girls are the biggest demographic for mobile games, with nearly twice the national average enjoying games on their phones.
“We manage a content platform on our network, so our users can access and download the best games that are out there,” Mr. Page said.
“So we’ve got strategic partnerships with some of the top application providers and gaming studios, including
GameLoft and
Electronic Arts, but we also deal with a lot of Canadian content providers such as Magmic which has been a big force when it comes to developing Blackberry games.”
This weekend, college and university students from across Canada will be participating in the
Great Canadian Appathon, a 48-hour video game building competition organized by the National Post and Toronto’s XMG Studio Inc, and sponsored by Telus.
Indeed, the next generation of video game developers will be on display as student participants spend the weekend creating new games that will run on Microsoft Corp.’s
Windows Phone 7 platform.
One of the way Telus is hoping to facilitate mobile transactions and encourage Canadians to buy more applications on their smartphones is through carrier billing initiatives.
“We hold a ton of billing relationships and consumers don’t necessarily want to download apps and input credit cards and have to give their credit card and personal information to multiple service providers, so we handle content from a mobile standpoint and act as a billing system,” Mr. Page said.
“What it does is it ensures that there is actually a larger sell through of these items. The more clicks you have to go through, the less likely it is that you’re actually going to buy something. If you can click one button that says ‘buy now’ and it can be billed to your carrier, then you only have the carrier to deal with, and you’ll be more likely to purchase the application.”
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