Keitai

We have the Flash Lite player on every handset we own but most players were purchased via the Adobe developer site. Only my E60 had Flash Lite pre-installed at the time of purchase. As a matter of fact, when you look at Adobe’s Supported Devices list, you find that—once Japanese Flash Lite 1.1 handsets are removed from the list—most devices listed support Flash but it’s not pre-installed. And out of the pre-installed list, you find way more high end devices (E series, N series etc.) So what about Flash on lower end, more mainstream devices?

The recent Verizon announcement at the Adobe Max conference was encouraging of course. Flash will come pre-installed on 4 handsets; with more on the way. Some of the handsets don’t seem to be available on the Verizon site yet but judging from the very low, subsidized price tag on existing handsets (Razrs), the new ones that support Flash will maybe range from $50-$150.

Still, let’s do a bit of hypothetical math. Verizon’s has a 25% (2005) market share on a national mobile penetration rate of 194 million [via Netsize.] So that gives us about 50 million Verizon customers. If Flash ends up on maybe 50% of their handsets, you could expect optimistic player penetration of maybe 25 million within 1-2 years (accounting for upgrade cycles etc.) But wait—it seems older handsets of that model (older Razrs for example) could be eligible for the player as well.

You see, Flash Lite is available via over the air download when a game is purchased…

While Flash is often embedded in browsers and media players for PC users, Flash Lite is actually embedded in the individual BREW applications so that users don’t have to download a separate browser or media player onto their phones. [CNET]

…but as we know, many consumers don’t purchase content for their device at all. As a matter of fact, according to M:Metrics (March 2006), Verizon itself only has 27 million data users (50% of its subscriber base.) So with all that taken into account, (people on Verizon, who use data to download content, have the right phone, happen to download a Flash game amongst all the J2ME offerings on the deck etc.) the above figure drops to maybe 10% (10 million?) It’s also unclear from existing press releases and developer information, whether these phones will support any off-deck content that might be transferred by consumers via MMC card.

So the Verizon announcement is all well and good but when will Flash appear on mid-to-lower end, unlocked/un-walled handsets in international distribution?

It may start with the Nokia 5300 XPress Music. We bought one of these yesterday and is it ever a nice little device. It looks fun, the form factor is nice, the music phone aspect is well developed with a good player, great sound, a 256MB card already included, support for over 1500 music files, and nice little headphones. The camera (1.3mpx) and video features are pretty is good and the QVGA (320×240) screen is gorgeous. There’s even ringtone mixing software included and it supports AAC files. The price tag is also reasonable at about $250 which puts it firmly in the middle-class device category here in Thailand and certainly makes it affordable as an (iPod-alternative?) added value gift for kids or teens at Christmas.

And—it includes Flash Lite 2.0 pre installed as a standalone player and for use in wallpapers/screensavers. The lower end model (Nokia 5200) will also include Flash Lite 2.0 and Flash is being promoted on both devices via a link in Nokia’s content discoverer. I don’t know how many of these devices Nokia will actually sell but it’s an approachable enough model that I can see it being very popular. It already seems to be here in Thailand and it’s only been out a few days.

Still it’s hard to say what either of these devices will do for the overall usage of Flash Lite by consumers. This has been an exciting year for Flash and it feels good to see the player finally shipping on a variety of models. I would hope that what next year will bring is an increased openness from operators to experiment with Flash Lite on deck as well as the beginning of strong some mainstream off-deck offerings. The most obvious off-deck category I think is still advertising and subsidized content.

The Flash format is fun, colourful, yet the player robust enough to work with data and launch SMS messages. Some player implementations do vary so features aren’t always 100% portable but it’s still remarkably easy to build once and play a SWF on 10-15 different handset without having to worry about actual porting. The swf files are small and easy to share via email, Bluetooth etc.—so, even if operators and aggregators take a while to catch on, why not use the player and format to its advantage and create free, downloadable, shareable (viral?) content (brochures, adverts, lifestyle content, maps/event annoucements, take-aways, coupons etc.) for brands and services?

If anything, it’ll keep the interactive agencies busy for a while