AT&T released its first figures for its new connected car unit. In a filing for the Security Exchange Commission, AT&T reported that two million cars in the United States are using AT&T services either through wholesale or retail contracts. In a connected car slide show AT&T shows some astounding figures, new partners and exponential growth.
In the third quarter, 500,000 connected cars were added to AT&T wireless car services.
In the AT&T Global Connected Car Market Research slide show, AT&T research showed almost two-thirds surveyed after learning about connected car services consider them an important feature in their next car.
Customers’ awareness of connected car services were high:
- Roadside Assistance (74%).
- Navigation and Real-time Traffic (72%).
- Remote Start (71%).
- Streaming Music (70%).
- Usage-based Insurance Tracking (52%).
- Wi-Fi Hotspot (50%).
AT&T notes that home monitoring and Internet connected cars could potentially create $1 billion in sales. AT&T projects 10 million cars with AT&T connections in 2017. Accenture studies have shown that connected car tech is the top-selling point for 39% of car buyers today.
“AT&T expects revenues from its connected cars to be driven initially by wholesale customer relationships with auto manufacturers, with the opportunity to develop a direct retail relationship with drivers. Wholesale ARPU (average monthly revenue per subscriber), paid for by auto manufacturers, is expected to be in the low single digits and retail ARPU, paid for by the car owners, is expected to be similar to that of a tablet on an AT&T Mobile Share Value Plan.”
When we looked further into a slide show fromAT&T connected on page 11 AT&T brags about its key selling points:
- Propriety global single SIM.
- Billing Solutions including split wholesale/retail.
- Over the Air Solutions, that save time and money.
- Reliable 4G LTE network.
- Commitment to innovation
- AT&T flexible connected car platform.
- In 2015 AT&T will have connected the most cars in the United States.
The logos on the top of page ten are Audi, BMW, Ford, GM, Nissan, Tesla and Volvo. [mmmn is this a clue of future 4G LTE offerings for drivers?].
Also if we look at the numbers of Strategy Analytics and AT&T in 2017 it looks like AT&T is the only player with 10 million.
Qualcomm slipped that over 15 car makers are considering 4G LTE connections for cars.
