There will be a day when every shopper needs to check whether they are carrying their mobile for sure before setting out to do a shopping, because mobile barcode scanner in the handset might become an absolute necessity for a quality shopping in the days to come. A mobile phone with barcode scanner embedded in the camera would drive operators' business and handset business as this additional feature helps consumers in many ways. For example consumers can have access to trusted product information and related services in their handsets when the mobile phone reads the barcodes of a product.
Mobile barcode scanning feature is a great opportunity for advertisers and consumers, both of whom are the service providers customers. It becomes a
value added service for SPs and subscription for this service means revenue for operators. In Asia, Japan and South Korean subscribers use this feature extensively for product informations. It is reported at least 70% of Japanese consumers use their handset to scan barcodes for detailed product information. Some of the European countries like France have started using this feature. According to reports, in September 2009, wine producers and manufacturers in the country collaborated to run a mobile barcode campaign to help customers improve their knowledge of wine. France's wine industry is a EUR 3.5 bn per year market, and 85% of wine is purchased in supermarkets. The campaign ran in 750 supermarkets and was available on 47 different mobile phone models.
According to GS1, a global not-for-profit standards organization, advertisers in segments like retail, food and household items segments show keen interests to start using mobile solutions to receive feedback from consumers. Its MobileCom' cross industry initiative will facilitate retailers/businesses to be able to give consumers anytime access to product information to their
handsets, making an impact of deep personal touch. GS1 MobileCom along with a group of organisations has been making efforts to define and use open standards to unlock the potential of mobile commerce, and to ensure interoperable, scalable and cost-effective applications. The fact that the initiative is driven by more than a million companies with a presence in 108 countries, indicates the kind of impact mobile scanning will make among the consumers.
Diane Taillard, the solutions director for GS1 and chief of the MobileCom initiative, said that extensive market analysis reveals the combination of barcode readers and Internet-enabled mobile phones is ideal. Common standard needs to be developed to make it work effectively. GS1 is working closely with the GSMA to speed up the initiative. Both organizations have done extensive market analysis and now we will tie this together.”
In last October, RedLaser applications for iPhones fetched huge revenue as it was one of the most paid-for applications on the iPhone App Store. This barcode scanner exited the users as the application enabled them to scan any barcode to get product information and online prices. The mobile camera scanner can read a variety of 2D mobile barcodes including QR codes, Data Matrix, Cool-Data-Matrix, Aztec, Upcode, Trillcode, Quickmark, shotcode, mCode and Beetagg.
Many handset players are already investing on this application. Motorola Ventures, the investment branch of the mobile manufacturer, announced two weeks back that it was investing in Scanbuy, which maintains the Scanlife mobile barcode reader.
kannan@cybermedia.co.in
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