Ownership Comparison Of Mobile Internet Platform Based On Two-Sided Markets

Business model of mobile internet is always an important and hot topic, but the core is mobile internet platform. China Mobile Monternet, NTT DoCoMo i-Mode and Vodafone Live! are telecom-operator-centric platforms with "wall garden" business model. With the development of3G network construction and3G services, especially with the rapid development of smart phones, terminal manufactures and application providers start to provide their own mobile application platforms, to enhance and increase their value and control ability in the industry chain. So there are concurrently four models of mobile internet platform in the market, telecom operator leadership model, terminal manufacture leadership model, application provider leadership model and open platform model. Different models of leadership will decide different positions for the players in the value chain of mobile internet."Apple Store" model, Google open model, Facebook and Renren model are becoming big challenges to telecom operator leadership model and would possibly replace telecom operator’s position. How to evaluate the different leadership models? Is there better or best business model in mobile internet? The questions and topics are obviously important to the people in ICT industry.The dissertation starts from the different leadership models of mobile internet platform, studied typical platform’s architecture of different models, summarized "attributes of ownership" for a mobile internet platform, and then got the platform’s "ownership structure". Based on the ownership structure and ownership attributes, the dissertation established the profit mathematics models, studied and compared different models according to two-sided markets pricing, platform profit, social welfare, etc. Following contents are discussed and studied in the dissertation.(1) Summarized the recent research status and progress of two-sided markets theory, platform theory, and mobile internet business model. From the application and industry perspective of view, two-sided markets theory are mostly used in media, software platform, payment and e-commerce, etc.; from theory perspective, the research mostly focus on pricing, rules, platform competition, and network externality, etc.. (2) Discussed and analyzed mobile internet platform’s architecture under different leadership model separately, summarized the "ownership attributes" and "ownership structure"."Ownership of mobile application’s management","ownership of mobile application’s pricing","ownership of profit’s assignation","ownership of mobile subscriber information" and "ownership of network and communication management" are the key attributes to define a mobile internet platform’s ownership;(3) Discussed and defined mathematics model of profit for a mobile internet platform, by introducing new "profit source"-from terminal, network traffic, advertisement, etc. Platform’s pricing model was also discussed and got some useful conclusion.(4) Compared and analyzed different "ownership structure" platforms, according to pricing, platform profit, social welfare, etc., and got very useful and positive conclusions. Platforms’ competition is also discussed-platforms with different quality of service, and different profit model are discussed and analyzed. Mathmatics simulation, instances and examples are used in all comparison and analysis.Compared with current two-sided markets research in ICT filed, there are several points of innovation in this dissertation.(1) Summarized and submitted the concept of "ownership attributes" and "ownership structure" for a mobile internet platform."Ownership" of a platform was simply divided into "owned by buyer","owned by seller" or "owned by the third party" in previous studies.(2) Defined mathematics model of profit which is suitable for the mobile internet platform by introducing new profit sources.(3) Comparison study and analysis under different "ownership structure", and got positive conclusions. Service difference, network externality, amount of the users in two sides of the platform, etc., are key factors for a platform to win in the competition.