The Coming of Mobile TV

At some point during late 2008, half of all human beings on Planet Earth will be carrying a mobile phone. That’s a milestone of significant historical importance. So we’re not surprised that the prospects for revenue generation through services offered on the mobile phone are so optimistic. The last few years have seen mobile phones become far more powerful, capable of conducting business on all levels, and incorporating many new and useful features, and with 3G and beyond technologies, become capable of video reception.

With the expected analog broadcast signal switchoffs looming, Infonetics’ "Mobile Video Devices, Services, and Subscribers" report published last week, predicts a massive jump in video services revenues. Service provider revenue from mobile video services jumped 317% to almost $200 million worldwide from 2005 to 2006, and is expected to triple in 2007. Similarly, the number of worldwide mobile video subscribers increased more than 300% between 2005 and 2006, and is set to soar to over 46 million by 2010. There’s an excellent article on emarketer covering the same subject entitled “Global Mobile TV and Video Get Real”. Watch this space – we expect it to become the next great commercial battlefield.

“We will continue to see healthy growth in the mobile video services market as mobile operators expand the bandwidth of their existing 3G networks through HSDPA and MBMS, roll out dedicated broadcast networks, and deploy new mobile video service delivery platforms (SDPs). Competition among service providers will keep subscription prices lower in the long term, but that revenue will be supplemented by incremental service revenue from on-demand viewing. We expect to see a spike in mobile video service revenue in 2008 due to the Summer Olympics in Beijing which, similar to last year 's World Cup, is a deadline for many operators to get their mobile video services up and running,” said Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband and IPTV at Infonetics.

Report Highlights

* Asia Pacific will be the regional stronghold of mobile video subscribers through at least 2010, with 57% of the world total in 2006, followed by EMEA at 31%, North America at 10%, and CALA at 3% * SK Telecom in Korea and NTT DoCoMo in Japan offer their mobile video services essentially free, a major reason Asia Pacific’s share of mobile video service revenue is about half that of EMEA, despite having almost twice as many subscribers * The number of mobile video handsets sold worldwide nearly doubled from 2005 to 2006 (including video-capable handsets not necessarily tied to a specific mobile video service) * Mobile video service ARPU (average revenue per user) in all regions increases significantly from 2006 to 2010, tripling in Asia Pacific (from a low base) and more than doubling in CALA

Infonetics' mobile video market report provides market size and forecasts for mobile video handsets, service revenue, and subscribers in North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific, CALA, and worldwide.

http://www.infonetics.com