Passion. Ability. Reality. Joy.

Here’s some sweet music for mobile operators struggling with stagnant, and even declining, ARPUs, or average revenue per user.

A recent study by the Mobile Marketing Association and mobile advertising firm Out There Media reveals the mobile user as a very different beast from the fatigued online user and one that might even be hungry for targeted ads.

Unlike the average Internet user who is tired of being bombarded with online ads and by other marketing methods, the mobile user is happy to even sign up for intelligent, location-based ads, the study reveals. The finding is quite intuitive, given the critical mass smartphones is attaining in these markets, and the hunger for information among the youth, the predominant users of these services.

Two key findings of the study should make marketers and mobile operators leap in joy.

First, opt-in rates permission-based mobile marketing in Asia are an average 25.15 percent; and the study found rates as high as 50 percent in some markets. Compare this with the abysmally low response rate for direct marketing of 1.38 percent.

Two, 97 percent of mobile users are willing to share location data with their operators and 96 percent are willing to share their interests in order to receive targeted ads.

How is this significant for Asian and other emerging markets?

Many telecom operators across the region have been hit by a double whammy: huge capital expenditure to roll out 3G services and declining voice revenues, mainly on account of lower call rates caused by tariff wars.  Take Bharti Airtel, India’s largest cellular operator, for example. It is investing up to $3 billion to roll out 3G services while battling tariff wars in the world’s fastest-growing mobile market. For the latest quarter, Bharti said ARPUs, already astonishingly low by global standards, dropped 12 percent to $4.3 a month.

In Brazil, the largest operator Vivo’s ARPUs fell 11 percent last year and MarketResearch.com, a leading industry research group based in the U.S., predicts falling ARPUs in Brazil till at least 2013.  In Mexico, the results are mixed. While the largest operator, Telcel’s ARPU is projected to fall to $12.54 in 2013, Nextel’s is predicted to rise to $69.10 in 2013, according to IE Market Research Corp., a Canadian provider of market intelligence services.  In Russia, a cellular market that has matured far ahead of other emerging markets, ARPUs have stabilized and are expected to rise. But market analysts say the rise would be inadequate to cover soaring costs, leaving telcos vulnerable.

In the circumstances, targeted mobile marketing offers operators such as Bharti Airtel, Vivo and many others one of the best ways to transform their business. They may consider two ways.

One, roll out more location-based services in what is a virgin market.

Two, hand out more smartphones by subsidizing handsets like in the U.S. MTS, an Indian operator, last month introduced such offers for a couple of HTC smartphones, bundling them with two-year contracts. It is not far-fetched to imaging others following suit, especially with more expensive handsets such as iPhones.