Europe’s Wireless Portal User Base Mushrooming

The coming fleet of WAP-enabled phones that support enhanced graphics and animation will help the usage of wireless Web portals in Europe to mushroom by the end of this year, according to an industry study. By the end of 2000, there will be approximately 16.7 million wireless portal end-users in Europe's top 15 markets, reports the Strategis Group in its recent study, European Wireless Portals: Strategies & Market Positioning.

Also helping to drive the European wireless portal market, according to the report, is the earlier-than-anticipated commercial deployment of 2.5-generation (2.5G) and third-generation (3G) infrastructure and handsets, which is now expected to happen in 2002 or 2003. As a consequence, by 2005, the number of portal end-users should top 183.7 million, says the report.

In addition, operators are adopting increasingly aggressive promotions and marketing strategies to encourage end-users to upgrade their handsets. "The level of freedom and the choice of services available via the portal will be key factors in the differentiation of one cellular operator's offering from that of their competitors, in what is set to become a highly competitive marketplace," commented Jamie Moss, telecommunications analyst at the Strategis Group.

The Strategis Group's portal research also indicates that cellular operators will launch portal-based applications for use by any cellular phone user, scrapping the previously used "walled garden" content model, which restricted subscribers' access to third-party portals. "Portal-based services are very much about the personalization of the end-user's experience -- to give added functionality and relevance to their ownership of a mobile phone," said Jake Saunders, regional director at the Strategis Group Europe. "Internet-savvy wireless end-users will not want to be restricted unnecessarily and will desire access to localized content, no matter where they are."