“…(77 year old Teruko) Miyata was sitting at a SoftBank Mobile store counter showing customers how to use the company’s latest smartphone…”

Kumiko Makihara reports in the New York Times on how Softbank (Japan’s 3rd largest 3G Mobile Network Operator) has hired and trained a “senior crew” to help them capture market share in the world’s most senior market.

It amazes me after the success Apple has had as a result of hiring sales staff with disabilities to sell and provide support to customers that mobile operator retail stores have remained so slow to realise that their high street stores are an unwelcoming destination for the most affluent group of potential customers that could walk inside.

As Telefonica’s flawed £20+ million O2 Health venture closes it’s doors it should be obvious that the market for mHealth Value Added Services is directly related to the adoption of easy to use smartphones by seniors (NB. even today’s easy to use mobiles are smartphones).

Only after senior subscribers can see value in mobile can mobile operators begin to resell and profit from the services they can build around emergency/SOS keys, Mobile Connected Smoke Alarms, Weigh Scales, Blood Pressure Monitors, Blood Glucose Monitors, ECG Monitors, Documented Video Consultations with Doctors, etc, etc…

(A visually impaired Apple Store Staff member using Nuance text to speech technology to fix the smartphone of a Space X Engineer).