Harvesting Big Data offers MNOs $9 billion cost savings and revenue opportunity by 2018

HAMPSHIRE, UK: The continued deployment of analytics platforms is expected to deliver combined savings and incremental revenues to MNOs (Mobile Network Operators) totaling more than $9 billion by 2018, a new report from Juniper Research has found. Greatest savings are expected to result from reduced customer churn and more efficient capex allocation, with MNOs also able to derive significant revenues through the licensing of opted-in subscriber data to third parties.

According to the report - Mobile Analytics & Big Data: Strategies for MNOs, Brands and OTTs 2013-2018 - the introduction of an analytics platform is of critical importance to players across the mobile value chain as a means of gaining insight into customer behaviour and matching investment with the most profitable customer segments.

Managing the "Big Data" deluge

It found that while many network operators were seeking to partner with third party analytics platform providers in a bid to monetise and manage the "Big Data" deluge, alternative strategies were emerging. Some operators - such as Telefonica and Verizon - have established in-house business units to offer aggregated subscriber data to enterprise customers, while in the UK, Everything Everywhere, Telefonica O2 and Vodafone have founded the advertising joint venture Weve.

Meanwhile, the report highlighted a sharp increase in analytics platform investment amongst OTT providers, citing Facebook's purchase of the Atlas platform from Microsoft to enable the provision of highly targeted advertising as a key development in this regard.

Players "need robust privacy policy"

However, the report cautioned that all users need to be aware of customer and regulatory privacy concerns. According to report author Keith Breed, "It is imperative for players to ensure that they - and their partners - have a robust policy in place for customer data usage, so that data can be aggregated and analysed without compromising subscriber privacy."