Why don’t device manufacturers complain about ‘Over The Top’ ?

I just came across this nice summary of global market revenues associated with mobile technology, courtesy of BCG.  $3.3 trillion in 2014.

What struck me (by virtual of the two-dimensional layout rather than a typical one-dimensional value-chain diagram) was that the $530 billion mobile content and apps market – generally seen as freeloading “over the top” services by mobile operators, depends on both communication services ($1 trillion of spend) and mobile devices ($520 billion of spend).

Pretty darn obvious, that, of course.  But despite the fact that content and apps are “over the top” of both services and hardware, it is interesting that…

• Communication device players don’t complain about how ‘OTT’ demand is driving them to develop newer and better products with more storage, faster CPUs, etc.
• People shrug their shoulders at non device neutral strategies (Apple…) and get all heated up at the mere thought of (probably impractical) non network neutral strategies.

Just sayin’… Get the business model right and things get a lot simpler.

Other posts you might like:

• Are OTTs making networking unsustainable?
• Why “App Economics” cause telcos to stumble
• Two ways to improve telco success in apps & content

[rjm-footer]