Global mobile TV revenues will more than double from their 2009 level by 2015, according to a new white paper from Juniper Research.
Mobile TV Revenues to Reach $7B in 2015
Data from “Tuning in to Mobile TV” indicates that global revenues from mobile TV, which totaled $3.2 billion in 2009, should reach $7 billion by 2015. Almost all of this growth will occur in streamed TV services, which currently account for the vast majority of mobile TV revenues. Broadcast TV services will undergo slight but steady growth, while streamed TV services will steadily rise for the next year or so and then sharply accelerate through 2015.
Mobile Broadcast TV Future Appears Dim
Given the extreme disparity in the anticipated growth rates of mobile streamed and broadcast TV revenues in the next five years, it is not surprising that Juniper Research predicts mobile broadcast TV will not have much of a future.
By the end of 2009, more than four-and-a-half years after the first mobile broadcast TV service was launched, Juniper Research says just 3.2 million users worldwide were paying for mobile TV services delivered via dedicated mobile broadcast TV networks. This figure represents well less than 0.1% of the global subscriber base.
Even in the two markets where mobile broadcast TV pay services are relatively well-established (South Korea and Italy, launching in May 2005 and June 2006 respectively) penetration is just 2% and 1.4%, respectively. The global pay TV base is barely sufficient to sustain a single medium-sized national network, according to Juniper estimates.
Therefore, Juniper predicts that pay TV services delivered via dedicated networks are unlikely to generate substantial revenues in the future; that few such networks will be commissioned and deployed in the future; that those networks which are in active service will increasingly struggle in the face of competing technologies.
However, Juniper advises that vendors, operators and service providers may be able to generate additional revenues by offering add-ons to digital terrestrial mobile broadcast TV networks and/or handsets fitted with chipsets which can receive free-to-air analog TV signals (most prevalent in Asia and Africa).
Key Factors Affecting Mobile TV Development
Juniper has identified the following three key factors affecting global development of mobile TV:
Americans Spend 3.5 Hrs/Month Watching Mobile Video
The average amount of time US mobile subscribers spent viewing video on a mobile phone per month remained flat in Q1 2009, Q4 2009 and Q1 2010 at three hours and 37 minutes, according to the Nielsen Company Q1 2010 Three Screens Report.
