BILLION BY 2011
01 February 2007
Informa Telecoms & Media predicts that the mobile web will
herald dramatic growth in revenues in the mobile content and
services market
Despite falling average revenues per user (ARPU) for mobile
operators, the mobile content and services market will
continue to grow dramatically as services and applications
reach maturity and new services begin to gain traction,
according to Informa Telecoms & Media. The latest edition of
Informa's "Mobile Content and Services" report reveals that
the introduction of a whole host of new players into the
value chain presents new opportunities for growth in the
mobile content and services market, whilst simultaneously
posing a threat to mobile operators who face losing control
of the billing relationship with their customers.
The mobile web heralds a new age
Mobile handset and network technology has now evolved to a
point where true mobile web access is possible. Informa
anticipates that by 2011, just under half of all mobile
subscribers worldwide will use mobile browsing, a trend it
sees developing with new operator offerings such as
T-Mobile's 'Web n Walk' service and 3's 'X-Series' services.
Despite this, messaging, headed by SMS will continue to
dominate the overall revenues for the market, generating
over half the total revenue in 2011 (from 67% in 2006).
"Advanced mobile content and services have been slow to take
off, but this should not be confused with the deepening
relationship that we have with our mobile phones. We may not
be buying as many games, full-track downloads or multimedia
messages as operators would like, but we are spending a huge
amount of time sending and reading text messages and
organising our lives using the phone's address book, clock,
alarm and calendar functions," commented Daniel
Winterbottom, Senior Analyst with Informa Telecoms & Media
and author of the report. "Over time, users will warm to
other data services as well. The mobile web is a prime
example: WAP failed to take off when it was first launched,
but five years on, more and more users have become
comfortable with accessing news or other information on
their mobile phones."
The mobile entertainment space will also see significant
innovation and development. Several technologies, such as
mobile music, have been available for a number of years but
the increased availability of high-speed data networks (such
as 3G and HSDPA) is giving further appeal to these services.
Mobile music will be a major contributor to the revenues
achieved in the mobile entertainment market in the next 5
years, although its overall share of the market will fall
from 40% in 2006 to 36% in 2011 as new forms of
entertainment such as mobile TV and video services begin to
gain consumer interest. Games, gambling, personalisation and
adult content will all see significant growth, as the
overall mobile entertainment market grows from US$18.84
billion in 2006 to US$38.12 billion in 2011.
Evolving services
The report investigates a number of other areas which will
see growth in the next five years:
User-Generated Content, the big story of the Internet in
2006, will continue to extend to the mobile space as new
applications begin to extend communities to users on the
move, and provide further means for mobile users to
contribute content whilst on the move. Informa forecasts
that the user-generated and communities will be worth
US$13.17 billion by 2011.
M-Commerce faces a number of challenges and has already hit
a few stumbling blocks. Whilst payments for digital content
'on-portal' continue to function, the growth in off-portal
content and the migration to the mobile web will open up the
market to other players. Google and eBay are both vying
hungrily for this space. Using the mobile as a vector for
physical payments, however, has proven more complex and
whilst the technology, in terms of Near Field Communications
chips embedded in handsets, is readily available, it has
been a struggle to prove demand outside of the Far East.
Informa estimates that the worldwide market for m-commerce
was US$359 million in 2006, coming mostly from the
Asia-Pacific region.
Mobile TV will continue to be the focus of much excitement
from mobile operators as broadcast services using a range of
different technologies are rolled out across Europe. It
remains to be seen if consumers will be as excited about the
services, and how operators will manage the issues of
advertising and pricing which will be critical to the
success of the service.
Operator strategies
The shape of the mobile content market is defining the
evolution of the mobile operator as a business entity. The
report investigates alternate approaches that are being
taken by different operators, from those remaining 'pure
play' mobile, diversifying into new vertical markets or
business applications, to those converging into a one stop
communications house. It gauges how these strategies will
pan out and where each strategy is likely to take hold in
different regions.
"The arrival of the mobile web on the mobile handset over in
2007 and beyond will see users embracing the same content
they take for granted on their PCs. Operators need to ensure
they are firmly locked into this value chain or risk missing
out on what will be an enormous market by 2011," concluded
Winterbottom.
About Informa Telecoms & Media
Informa Telecoms & Media is the leading provider of business
intelligence and strategic marketing solutions to global
telecoms and media markets.
Driven by constant first-hand contact with the industry our
90 analysts and researchers produce a range of intelligence
services including news and analytical products, in-depth
market reports and Datasets focused on technology, strategy
and content.
Informa Telecoms & Media also organizes more than 125 annual
events, attended by more than 70,000 executives. In addition
to the GSM>3G World Series, our events cover subjects as
diverse as fixed and mobile operator strategy, technology,
TV, mobile music and games.
Informa Telecoms & Media is always willing to work with
journalists to provide stats, data or comment for articles.
To purchase this report, please visit
http://www.informatm.com/content
For further information, please contact:
Daniel Winterbottom
Senior Research Analyst
Informa Telecoms and Media
daniel.winterbottom@informa.com
Tel +44 (0) 207 017 5553
Media Relations
Natasha Mensah
Marketing & Communications Executive
Informa Telecoms & Media
natasha.mensah@informa.com
Tel +44 (0) 207 017 5824
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment