Mobile TV services to generate over USD10 billion in revenues in 2013, claims research

Revenues from Mobile TV services will generate USD1.5 billion in 2008, rising to over USD100 billion in 2012, according to research by Informa Telecoms & Media. At present the revenues are said to be predominantly from subscription fees but this is expected to change over time as the advertising business model starts to gain prominence. Informa believes that by 2013 nearly half of the revenues will come from advertising.

According to Informa, in the next two years, growth is anticipated to be strongest in the pioneering markets of South Korea and Japan before the rest of the world starts to catch up around 2010/2011. Despite isolated success stories in places like Italy and Austria, Europe is not expected to see rapid growth in Mobile TV until 2009. The USA is expected to take even longer as confusion over standards prevents growth. Eventually, concerted momentum behind ATSC-MH is expected to boost the market for mobile TV in North America.

"As the owner of the marketing and billing relationship with subscribers, operators are in the best position to offer mobile TV services", comments Shailendra Pandey, Senior Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media. "It seems that a good approach for mobile operators will be to start with a free-to-air business model which also involves minimum capital investment. Once user uptake of services starts to grow, operators can then think of developing new revenue models that can be established on top of the free-to-air content platform", adds Pandey.

Most in the industry believed that Mobile TV was going to reach the mass market a lot earlier than has been the case. A number of market and technology barriers have conspired to delay the widespread adoption of mobile TV by consumers and growth in many regions is still fragile.

Research from Informa Telecoms & Media shows that the future of Mobile TV will not be just broadcast or 3G but will be a mix of technologies matched to a mix of audience experiences. 

Source: European communications

Ten-fold growth in mobile TV and video

Broadcasters and consumers will lead an impressive ten-fold growth in mobile TV and video penetration over the next five years but lack of advertisement accountability and system fragmentation will prevent the sector from reaching its full potential monetisation in the near term.

These are the key findings of ‘Mobile TV and Mobile Video, 2nd Edition - A Complete 360-degree Analysis', a new report by NSR, a market research and consulting firm that specialises in satellite and wireless technology and applications.

The report examines market and technology trends influencing mobile TV stakeholders' participation and predicts that mobile TV and mobile video services offered over broadcast and unicast distribution will grow almost ten-fold from an estimated user base of over 57 million at the end of 2007 to 566 million users by the end of 2013.

NSR believes that much of the growth will come from free broadcast services and unicast video as a result of broadcaster involvement in mobile broadcast distribution, 3G network expansion and user/operator involvement in user-generated content (UGC) and web-mobile social networking integration.

The likely upshot is that global service revenues comprising subscription, advertisement and transactional revenue will reach $9 billion by 2013. Advertisement, says NSR, will exhibit the highest growth as a result of the expected proliferation of free broadcast services and ad-supported video.

However, NSR cautions that even though there exists long-term promise in mobile video advertisement, the market is at an embryonic stage of mobile advertisement and adds that by 2013, mobile TV advertisement revenue will still be far from reaching its full potential.

Source: Content2Mobile