The Asian Prepaid Cards Market: Fill & Download for Free

This question can be answered by looking back at how mobile standards and the smartphone industry have evolved over time.European firms like Nokia and Siemens once dominated the industry. In the 2G (voice-only) era, European nations adopted the GSM standard, a protocol that was developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute in 1991. Meanwhile, over in the U.S. we dithered around with two competing standards -- GSM and CDMA. In a replay of VHS vs. Betamax, it turns out the underlying technology behind CDMA was actually superior in some ways (CDMA ultimately went on to become the underlying technology of 3G) but GSM was the one that achieved scale more quickly for reasons not related to technology.For example, one big difference between U.S. and European cellphones in the late 1990s and early 2000s was the use of SIM cards. My first two cellphones (a Sanyo "brick" and the revolutionary Motorola Startac) did not have SIM cards and could only be used on Sprint's PCS network. Moreover, in the U.S., you were further bound to your carrier because you had to sign a long-term service contract. Even after they introduced SIM cards in their phones, U.S. carriers tried for a while to leverage their oligopolistic powers and keep the SIM cards locked so that switching costs remained high.While this was good for carrier financials, it put American companies at a disadvantage trying to compete globally during the 2G era because (i) not being locked to your carrier was just a better customer experience and (ii) a lot of the new growth was starting to come out of developing countries where it was a lower ASP market that favored prepaid plans.Nokia was the undisputed leader of GSM and the 2G era. Here is my beloved Nokia 8310, the first GSM handset I ever owned, purchased when I moved to Hong Kong in 2001:Meanwhile over in Asia, the consumer electronics industry and eco-system was quite well-developed by the early 2000s. Chips and components were manufactured in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea and then shipped to China for final assembly. After undergoing some restructuring following the Asian Financial Crisis, Korean chaebols such as Samsung and LG emerged leaner and very focused on the rapidly growing cellphone market. At the time, European and Japanese companies dominated the handset industry. By the mid-2000s, they had started to establish themselves as credible players in the market.When 3G standards rolled around in the mid-2000s, the American telecom industry finally made the right standards choices. Moreover, a lot of the intellectual property behind 3G came from U.S. companies like Qualcomm. 3G also ushered in the era of data at speeds that started to allow consumers to do interesting things with their phone. We were on the cusp of the smartphone era.That American firms like Apple and Google came to dominate the smartphone market was never pre-ordained ... in fact, they were actually late to the game. The first real smartphone OS, Symbian, was developed by a consortium of mainly European-based corporations [1]. At one point it completely owned the smartphone market outside of an emerging Canadian company called Research in Motion (Blackberry), Palm and Microsoft's fumbled attempts to build a mobile OS that looked suspiciously like its PC/desktop Windows OS.Then on June 29, 2007, Apple released the iPhone and completely changed the rules of engagement for the industry. It so completely disrupted the industry that within a few years, Symbian (and the other incumbents) were pretty much gone or irrelevant and with it, the European handset industry. The sale of Nokia's phone business to Microsoft merely seven years after the introduction of the iPhone highlights how rapidly it all unraveled.The cellphone era was about standards, hardware and first-mover advantages. The smartphone era is more about software and apps and that is something Americans are really good at.South Korea, Taiwan and China [2] stayed relevant because they were more focused on the hardware and manufacturing side of the business. That made them a good complement for Apple and the Android eco-system which were more software and services-centric by nature. Moreover, over in China, the world's largest mobile market had emerged and the Chinese were determined to create their own separate eco-system for a combination of economic and strategic reasons.All of this happened in less than two decades. The evolution of the mobile and smartphone industry is an interesting lesson in how quickly things move in the technology world when things are driven by Moore's Law. It makes me quite excited to see how things unfold in the next twenty years. Perhaps one day we will see another technology shift and the Europeans will be back on top once again.Notes:[1] Symbian Ltd. began as a consortium between Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and Psion. Motorola (US-based) sold its stake to Psion in 2003 and Psion sold its entire stake in 2004 to Nokia, Matsushita, Siemens AG and Sony Ericsson. Following this, Finland-based Nokia was the majority owner and in December 2008, it bought out the rest of the shareholders in the company.[2] Japan also fell a few notches. Like the U.S. with CDMA in the 2G era, they also wrongly chose to stick to their own niche cellphone standards, were unable to achieve scale and ultimately missed out on the smartphone revolution. This is sad because I still fondly remember what incredible pieces of technology Sony's camera phones in the early 2000s were.

Love Hajar Bouazzaoui's answer "Start by not asking the 99%". On an average day, I would write that answer too. But I am in a good mood today.I am not the 1% yet. My answer might not be perfect, but it will give you some ideas. I grew up with the 1%. I am of royal descent. My great grandfather was very close with the president. His house is in the heart of my city, right next to the United Nations office, a few embassies, and a high-end hotel. I come from a somewhat affluent family in my country. I joke around sometime, "let's read history and learn about our family." If I am not wrong, there was a movie about one of my great grandfathers.My father used to distribute half of the country's prepaid phone cards with cell phone stores in every city. Later, he became a consultant with high-end clients who are the 0.01% in the country. That should put us in the lower upper class in our country (third world country) and the middle class in the world.1. UnlearnYou cannot become the 1% if you think like the 99%."School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is."- Ivan IllichThe fewer questions people ask, the easier it is to control them. The 1% use education and media to control the 99%.When I was small, my mother told me to listen with two ears. Let things come in one and go out the other. Don't believe everything you hear. DON'T TRUST ANYONE.Always ask questions. Even if you agree with something, try to look from the other side. If you disagree with something, do the same. Don't just listen, think critically.It is hard. Very hard. You will get the messages for the 99% and have to decode them. You don't want to believe what the 1% want you to believe.One summer, my father sent me to follow this talented entrepreneur to learn how to create a market and start a real estate bubble. We spent pretty much every other day chatting about the market and strategies in high-end restaurants. If someone tells you something, you find it out too late. You need to calculate all the moves before everyone else. Don't let mainstream media and education distract you.2. Never Stop LearningWhen I was a little kid, every new year day, the first thing my mother told me to do was to study. She told me that one day I will use my pen to change the world. Now you know I am old :) and that I am trying to changekill the world with my keyboard. The 1% knows the importance of knowledge. If you know how to use knowledge the right way, it is the most powerful weapon.a. Read a lotMy parents are extremely frugal. But there was always one thing I could have as many as I wanted ... BOOKS.I remember when I was small, I had all the fairy tales you can find. I went book shopping every week. My father bought my first business book when I was 8. It was a comic about business strategies. By the time I was 10, I got bored with children books and started reading my parents' history, philosophy, war strategy, and business books. My parents have never had to force my sister and me to read. Everyone around us read a lot, and we just picked up the habit ourselves.11% of rich people read for entertainment, compared to 79% of poor85% of rich people read two or more education, career-related, or self-improvement books per month, compared to 15% of poor94% of rich people read news publications including newspapers and blogs, compared to 11% of poor peopleSource: What Rich People Have Next To Their BedsPoor people read for pleasure. Rich people read for self-improvement. It doesn't mean fictions are useless. Some of the most important books in Eastern are novels. Dream of the Red Chamber was my first book about power. Three Kingdoms taught me history, philosophy, culture, war strategies, management etc. It doesn't matter what you read, if you don't have the right mindset, you won't learn anything.Don't read just for fun. Read to acquire new knowledge. Always ask questions and ask yourself what you can learn from the book.Don't just collect knowledge like baseball cards and hide them somewhere in the back of your brain. Find ways to turn them into actions.Knowledge is useless unless you can figure out how to convert it into action.b. ObserveObserving others is the best way to learn. Pay attention to the way people think, behave, and treat other. You can learn so much more than you think.When I visit my father, he takes me to important business meetings with his top clients. One time, I was with a group of people who were planning to build "the next Hong Kong" (their words, not mine). I wasn't a fan of their strategies. That project never happened.My father always treats me equally when it comes to business. He would ask me a bunch of question such as:- What do you think about the project? If you were me, what would be your strategy?- What do you think about ____ (this person)? How would you use him?- Do you agree with ___? Why/Why not?- What would you do differently?He would treat me like a partner instead of his daughter. Those projects were multi-million dollars projects.One day I asked my father why he never taught me anything. I couldn't understand why he taught his employees all the time but not me. My father replied, "What I can teach you, you already know. What you need to learn, you have to observe by yourself. That is why I bring you everywhere."That day I learned the most important lesson my father has taught me.3. Understand your relationship with moneyRich people are not rich because they spend money all the time. They are rich because they spend money wisely and that money ends up working for them."Don't work for money, make money work for you," my parents have told me all my life. That is why I am working hard to build my own empire, ThinkRenegade | eCommerce + Digital Marketing Agency, so that one day it will work for me. If you want to trade time for money, you will never have enough time.Never let money define you. If you do, you will only be worth as much as you have. I never knew how much money my father made at his best. I only know how much my father had at his worst. But according to his former executive, he used to make 50-100K a day (on paper before the market in Asia crashed). I don't know if this is true or not. But I can tell you he made a good living. If you are plotting a plan to kidnap me, I have to break the bad news ... all that money is paper now. If you can get any money out of my father now, I will match the amount. I think he will tell you to keep me, so there's one person less to feed.One day during his best years, we walked into a supermarket (the Asian version of Wal-Mart), and my father picked up a pair of jeans. I asked him why would he buy a $5 pair of jeans. He replied it has everything he needs. That is the way my parents live. They could spend a lot of money on something very important like education but they would never spend a few dollars on something we don't really need.They always tell me, "Don't buy what you don't need, one day you will have to sell what you need."4. Focus on solving other people's problem instead of yours.Feed the masses, eat with the classes.Benefit #1Let's do the math. If you are the 1%, your problems can only represent 1% of all the problems in the world. By helping others, your chance to become successful is higher.Benefit #2One of the biggest lessons I have learned from managing people is....When people have their own problems, they cannot help me solve mine.If you are going through a divorce or a loved one is dying in the hospital, do you think you can focus and help me plotting my evil plan to build the next big digital marketing agency? NO.Instead of yelling at people all day (I have an anger problem), I learned to ask them about their problems and offer help when possible.I am not nice. I just want people to focus on things that are important to me.Benefit #3Making money is hard, keeping money is harder. What if tomorrow you are no longer the 1% and all your 1% friends ignore you? You will need at least one of the 99% to help you.Be selfish. Invest in people. If one out of a thousand people you have helped return the favor one day, it is a great deal.My parents don't share about all the inspirational messages. They don't sugarcoat anything. They don't tell me to help people to be the next Gandhi. I am too narcissistic for that. They taught me to help others to create a safety nest when I fail. We are realists.We are selfish. At least we don't pretend we are not.5. Work smart, work hard and stop complainingMy parents taught me to always look up instead of down. If you are happy with what you have, it will be very hard to move forward. You need something to push you to work smarter and harder.a. Work smartWorking hard is not enough. There are a lot of poor hard-working people. If you are planning to trade time for money, you will never become rich. You need to figure out how to get the most out of the time you have.It doesn't matter what you need to do even if you have to lie, cheat, steal, or kill, figure out the shortcuts and the best ways to do things. If you cannot find ways to optimize the way you do things, you haven't thought about it enough.Lie to yourself to get work done.Cheat on everyone and yourself to achieve something bigger. Stay focus.Steal knowledge.Kill Bad habits. Kill your own ideas. If you waste time with the wrong idea, you will miss opportunity to turn the right idea into reality.(I believe every word is neutral. It all depends on how you look at them.)b. Work hardWorking smart is not enough. There are a lot of smart people who work smart.Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.Some of the most successful people I know work crazy hours. They have more money than they can spend, but they still work a lot. They didn't get to where they are today by sitting around and waiting for luck.c. Stop ComplainingIf you are the 1%, people don't feel sorry for your high class problems. Rich people problems are as annoying as poor people problems. Problems are problems for a reason. The 1% often don't have a privilege to complain all day long like the 99%.Because of that, they have to learn to zip their mouths and find ways to solve all their problems. That is why they stay being the 1%.If you complain about life, you are losing time. Complaining doesn't change a thing. If you don't like something, change it. If you fail, at least you learn something. If you just complain, you will end up with nothing.If something doesn't work out the way you wanted it to, it is your fault because you did nothing to change it.If I tried to change it and it didn't work out, I haven't tried hard enough.Always blame yourself. It is the best way to make yourself a better person. Always aim for better.6. Surround yourself with the 1%You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.- Jim RohnThe 1% like to help people around them (see #5). If you have access to the 1%, you will have more access to higher quality opportunities to find your way to become one.Also, if you keep hanging out with the 99% they will hold you back. You need to get out of the 99% bubble.I am not saying you should cut all your connection with the 99%. They are great people, and you need them in your life. HOWEVER, in order to move forward, you need to figure out to surround yourself with the 1%. It will increase your chances for you to become one of them.6. Be persistentNothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race- Calvin CoolidgeThings don't always work out. It is okay.Most successful people have failed many times before they found their success. If you want to be part of the 1%, make sure you stick around longer than the 99%.If you want to be the 1% for the lifestyle, don't do it. The price you have to pay is way too high. It requires a lot of work. Making money is hard but keeping it is even harder. People will have very high expectations of you. People expect me to be very successful or become the next Jackie O. It is hard living with so much pressure. You will be responsible for so many lives.Try to be the 10%, and you still can have a decent life with less pressure. You will never be happy with what you have anyway.If you are a millionaire, you are still poor compared to your multi-millionaire friends.If you are a multi-millionaire, you are poor compared to a billionaire.If you are a billionaire, you are still poorer than an even wealthier billionaire. What is enough?P.S. Many people think I am just a spoiled brat who spends her daddy's money. I wish that was true. What you have read is only half of the story. I went from an elite to semi-homeless, from having power to powerless, from having friends to having nobody. After 10 years, I live a comfortable life as a middle class. I make everything with my 2 hands and brain. That is a story for another day. The rollercoaster of life taught me, I am the only person who can decide my destiny. I can accept what life throws at me or I can write my own story. Legacies must be earned by the choices we make.If you enjoyed my answers, don't forget to join my mailing list to receive free business marketing and life hacks.

Which video streaming platform is worth your money and viewing attention—Netflix or iflix?iflix entered the Philippines in 2015. With over 15 million subscribers, iflix brands itself because the world’s leading entertainment service for emerging markets. Then came Netflix Philippines a year later. Now, it's grown to over 151 million paying streaming subscribers worldwide and over 6.56 million free-trial customers (as of second quarter 2019).These two video streaming giants have redefined the way Filipinos, especially the younger audience, watch movies and television shows. People nowadays like better to stream or download videos through video-on-demand services than attend the cinemas or maybe get cable TV subscription. Subscribing to those new platforms allow viewers to observe anywhere and anytime—without any ads—on their devices.The latest Battle of the Brands edition evaluates and compares the various aspects of using the 2 hottest on-demand video streaming services within the Philippines.Whether you’re choosing which service to subscribe for the primary time, or deciding to continue or cancel your current subscription, this Netflix vs iflix comparison review is for you. Keep reading to form an informed choice on where to possess your binge-watch sessions.At a Glance: Netflix vs iflix ComparisonHere’s a fast comparison table highlighting the essential similarities and differences between Netflix and iflix:NetflixiflixAccess to movies and TV shows onlineUnlimitedUnlimitedContent availabilityMostly Western showsMostly Asian showsCompatible devicesLaptop/PC, smartphone, tablet, Smart TV, game consoles, Chromecast, and Blu-ray playersLaptop/PC, smartphone, tablet, Android TV, Samsung TV, LG TV, and any TV via Chromecast or HDMINumber of devices per accountUnlimitedUp to five devicesSimultaneous streamingOne, two, or four devices at a time, depending on the subscription planUp to two devices at a timeStreaming qualitySupports SD, HD, and ultra HD, depending on the subscription planAutomatically streams in SD or HD, depending on internet speedContent download limit for offline viewing100 titles on a single device at any given timeUp to 10 videos for offline viewingMonthly rateStarts at PHP 370PHP 129Payment optionsCredit, debit, and prepaid cards (Visa, Mastercard, or American Express)Credit and debit cards (Visa or Mastercard)Free trial30 days; requires payment details upon signup30 days; does not require payment details upon signupContent Availability within the PhilippinesBoth video streaming services offer access to international and native TV shows and films during a wide selection of genres. the higher choice depends on the viewer’s preference. Take a glance at the Netflix vs iflix content availability below.