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Article from synthesis Journal 2010

MobileCom and ISO Standard on Mobile Item Identification and Management

Part 1: MobileCom Asia Pacific Regional Survey

In September 2009, in order to have a better understanding of the consumer need for MobileCom, eight Asia Pacific GS1 country organisations in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan formed GS1 Mobile Commerce Asia Pacific (APAC) Working Group. This work group focused its work in Asia Pacific region. The first stage is to conduct a survey was coordinate by GS1 Singapore GS1 Hong Kong.

This survey was to study mobile commerce adoption in APAC as a starting point for project planning. Objectives of the survey are:

1. 1 To collect and describe existing and popular mobile standards, key identifiers (barcode/RFID), symbologies (1D/2D), applications and business cases that have been adopted in each APAC Member Organisation’s (MO) country
2.     To assist GS1 MOs to understand APAC mobile commerce adoption levels with industry and identify room for improvement
3.    To provide crucial information, such as trends, market size, application category, pricing, features and users demographics of mobile commerce in APAC, for deriving mobile commerce strategies
4.     To understand advantage and barriers in the adoption of mobile commerce in APAC region
5.    To understand advantage and barriers in the adoption of mobile commerce standards which form the basis of the AP mobile commerce work group initiatives
6.     To setup the AP steering committee to steer the AP strategy in the mobile commerce area

This survey was completed in September 2009.

Details are as follows:-

Detailed Findings for objective 1

To collect and describe existing and popular mobile standards, key identifiers (barcode/RFID), symbologies (1D/2D), applications and business cases that have been adopted in each APAC MOs’ country

Business Cases in Asia Pacific

1.    China:

-     China Southern Airline using 2D barcode

2.    Korea:

-     TAX Payment(Seoul City)

-     Movie ticket

-     Some mobile network providers are using 2D barcodes to access their services (e.g. Music download)

3.    Hong Kong

-     Cathay Pacific SMS-ticket

-     Movie Mobile-ticket

-     DoodMeCo Extension of Printed Media

4.    Australia

-     GS1 Australia pilot project with Victoria University

5.    Taiwan

-     EasyCard embedded in mobile phone, widely used in Taipei MRT

6.    Malaysia

-     Checking of Halal status of product

Summary of Key Findings (1)

•        Key identifiers: Barcode; 1D Barcode (GTIN) with the advantage of printed on all FMCG products

•        Symbologies: 1D barcode – GTIN; 2D barcode – QRCode, DataMatrix

•        Applications: Mainly in B2C; Food, Ticketing and Entertainment; Preferred Open-source application development

•        Business cases: Ticketing in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan; Food related in Australia and Malaysia; Entertainment in Hong Kong and Korea

•        Recommendation:

–        QRCode is the most popular symbology in mobile application.  Suggest speeding up incorporation QRCode as a GS1 standard data carrier

Detailed Findings for objective 2

To assist GS1 MOs to understand APAC mobile commerce adoption levels with the industry and identify room for improvement

•             1D barcode already printed on FMCG

•             2D barcode label is not as popular as the 1D barcode label of printing on the FMCG

•             QRCode mobile reading application could be the target mobile application for GS1 MobileCom working group

•             Over 60% of the Asia Pacific MOs do not have the developed/developing mobile applications by local office due to lack of expertise. They intended to working with partners in the market

Detailed Findings for objective 3

To provide crucial information, such as trends, market size, application category, pricing, features and users demographics of mobile commerce in APAC, for deriving mobile commerce strategies

Summary of Key Findings (3)

•        SMS, WAP and Internet are the most common communication channels

•        Users demographics: China’s major users aged in 18-24; Australia and Hong Kong major users aged over 40; Korea and Singapore each age group in average

•        Market size: Japan and Taiwan have high penetration mobile Internet users (>60%); China has huge number of mobile Internet users (117M)

Detailed Findings for objective 4

To understand advantage and barriers in the adoption of mobile commerce in APAC region  

Top 2 MNOs market share more than 50%; Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson are main handset manufacturers

•              Average market share of the top 2 telephone companies among 8 countries >70%

•              Average market share of the top 2 handset manufacturers >50%

•              Target segment for cooperating with GS1

Summary of Key Findings (4)

•        Market facts: Top 2 MNOs market share >50% among 7 AP MOs that can be advantage if MNOs are positive or else can be barrier

•        Most common handset brands are Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson in AP except Japan

•        QRCode is the hottest symbology in AP

•        Recommendations:

–        Shall we start the discussion with the top MNO on the global and regional level on adapting GS1 1-D barcode / 2 – D data matrix scanning solution pre-installed on the phones?

–        We should consider working with market solution providers on jointly offering GS1 mobile commerce solution

Detailed Findings for objective 5

To Identify the business cases and the required supporting mobile commerce standards which form the basis of the AP mobile commerce work group initiatives