There’s nothing more press people love than bombastic comments from people in high places. This latest torrent of harsh truth sprinkled with mild humor comes from SoftBank Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son [pictured above, to the left] who says that the “depressing reality” of the mobile industry is that data traffic is going to go up by 1000x in the next 10 years and that it’s going to put operators in a situation where the only people making any real money off mobile are Apple, Google, and Cisco. Apple has their insane margins, Google has their operating system that’s quickly turning the mobile space into the PC space, and by that we mean everyone runs the same commoditized hardware and software bundle, and Cisco makes the routers and switches that have to bear with all the packets that are going to be flying through the air, giving consumers their 1080p YouTube videos and whatever else will be common place in a few years time.
Softbank, for those who haven’t heard that name before, is an operator in Japan. Back in 2006 the company was losing money left and right so they decided to buy Vodafone Japan for $20 billion in a last ditch effort. It was a crazy bet, but Masayoshi Son likes to say “sometimes craziness gives a good return.” He’s got a point, Softbank is now Japan’s 3rd largest operator, 3G penetration levels have hit 100%, and 84% of new customers signing up opt to get a smartphone.
His solution for competing in today’s brutal world is simple: “market share can go up if you bet more aggressively for the future than your competitor”, which is what we’ve been saying since the beginning. Invest in the network, and people will come. It’s why Verizon Wireless is the biggest operator in the USA and why Vodafone has their hand in nearly every country, whether fully branded or with a large share of a domestic player.