By
Chris Fox on June 27th, 2008
Posted in Other Interesting Articles | No Comments »
Worldwide mobile subscriptions will rise from 3.9 billion in 2008 to 5.6 billion in 2013, according to a new Strategy Analytics report. Discounting for people with more than one subscription, more than half of the world’s population will be using mobile phones by early 2010, up from 40% at the start of this year.
3G share of subscriptions and revenues
Asia-Pacific and the Middle East & Africa (MEA) are responsible for the current surge in mobile subscriptions. Those areas will remain the engines for growth in the wireless market in the medium term, contributing to 80% of subscription growth through 2013.
“These two regions may be driving the subscription count, but they contribute much less to global revenues,” comments Phil Kendall, Director Global Wireless Practice. “Asia-Pacific and MEA account for nearly 60% of worldwide subscriptions, but less than 40% of revenues. Their increasing significance will reduce average revenues per subscription by 15% over the next five years”.
3G networks will account for half of all mobile subscriptions by 2013. Susan Welsh de Grimaldo, Senior Analyst, Wireless Network Strategies, adds, “3G technologies will reach critical mass in more regions in 2008, driving worldwide subscriber numbers close to 500 million by year end. Next year, more than one third of all service revenues will be generated by 3G technologies, even though 3G accounts for only one in six subscribers.”
Bookmark on del.icio.us
By
Chris Fox on June 27th, 2008
Posted in Other Interesting Articles | No Comments »
Mobile gaming will be worth $4.5 billion in 2008, says Gartner. The analyst’s projection suggests a 16.1 per cent increase from 2007 revenue of $3.9 billion. And with EA recently telling ME that the European market generated 100 million downloads last year (that’s around $500 million at the very maximum), it looks very optimistic. Nevertheless, Tuong Huy Nguyen, principal analyst at Gartner, said:”Although current consumer interest in, and usage of, mobile gaming is generally low, the potential for growth remains lucrative, with the market skewed toward lower-income segments, mobile workers and smartphone and personal digital assistant (PDA) users,” he said
Gartner predicts that mobile gaming revenue will experience a compound annual growth rate of 10.2 per cent between 2007 and 2011 with worldwide end-user spending reaching $6.3 billion in 2011. The Asia/Pacific region (including Japan) represents the largest market for mobile gaming, with end-user spending forecast to total $2.3 billion in 2008 and reach $3.4 billion by 2011. India is expected to lead among Asian countries in terms of total mobile gaming revenue generated, with the 2007 figure at approximately $80 million. This is forecast to reach $450 million by 2012.
The North American market is projected to grow from $845 million to approximately $1.2 billion in 2011.
[VIA ME DAILY]
Bookmark on del.icio.us
By
Chris Fox on June 24th, 2008
Posted in Other Interesting Articles | No Comments »
The Top Gear juggernaut rolls on. Once a humble but controversial BBC autos review show, BBC Worldwide is now cashing in on accidental US popularity with Australian and American spinoffs, bigger billing on BBC America and making topgear.com top amongst its new ”passion sites”.
Next is a mobile phone game, the broadcaster has announced. Players will get to race a lap on a virtual version of the test track driven weekly on TV by The Stig, with lap times logged like on the show and a range of stunts available (this is the show that played soccer on ice using Suzukis, for the uninitiated). Though the game is commissioned from Gameloft by the BBC’s overseas and profit-making wing BBC Worldwide, it will be available only in the UK.
[VIA MOCONEWS]
Bookmark on del.icio.us
By
Chris Fox on June 19th, 2008
Posted in Other Interesting Articles | No Comments »
Australian operator uses Streamezzo platform to add interactivity to FOXTEL mobile TV.
Telstra has revamped its Mobile FOXTEL TV service with video-on-demand capabilities, an interactive electronic programme guide (EPG) and the ability to remotely trigger home recording on a set-top box via the handset.
Mobile FOXTEL was originally launched by Telstra in late-2007 in partnership with the News Corp-owned pay TV provider, Streamezzo and Alcatel-Lucent.
[VIA ME DAILY]
Bookmark on del.icio.us
By
Chris Fox on June 16th, 2008
Posted in Other Interesting Articles | No Comments »
[VIA: MOCONEWS]
Japanese electronics maker Sharp is launching an adapted model of its 920SH mobile phone in China later this month, aimed at high end users, as it makes its first foray into a market that has been notoriously difficult for Japanese handset makers to crack. Sharp’s rival handset makers Matsushita Electric, NEC, and Kyocera, have all tried, failed, and decamped from the Chinese market, despite rolling out some of the world’s most advanced cellphones. Sharp is Japan’s leading handset maker, but in a saturated home market is seeking growth in emerging markets to boost revenues. In China, it’s purposely positioning itself on the high end to avoid a showdown with Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and Samsung, whose size and scale allow them to dominate China’s low end handset market. Reuters reports that Sharp said it hoped the business would be able “to stand on its own two feet, by 2009-2010.
Sharp plans to retail the 920SH starting at 3,000 yuan ($434) in Shanghai and Beijing. The Japanese version of the 3G phone music phone, currently carried by Softbank, is a svelte 18 mm, with a 3.2” widescreen VGA LCD. It also supports Japan’s TV standard oneSeg. The company plans to release a further two or three undisclosed handsets to the Chinese market later this year.
[VIA: MOCONEWS]
Bookmark on del.icio.us
By
Chris Fox on June 9th, 2008
Posted in Other Interesting Articles | No Comments »
[VIA ME DAILY]
Mobile operators are trying to decide who’s most important – their ad sales guys or their content teams.
As those walled gardens start coming down, carriers are being faced with a dilemma: do they sell banner advertising to rival content providers or decline their cheques for fear that their own download revenues will be cannibalised.
This tug-of-war quandary came to public light at last month’s MEM event in Cannes when Lee Fenton, the recently departed COO of Jamba, told delegates that he’d like to do more mobile advertising if only more operators would permit it.
It’s a problem that is made more acute by the effectiveness of mobile internet ads, which work because they route consumers straight through to a WAP site; there’s no need to text a shortcode or click a WAP push link, both of which put users off.
Mark Curtis, CEO of UK mobile social network Flirtomatic, said: “Mobile is 250 times more effective than ads in the press or radio. And when you take into account ROI on mobile versus web users, it’s six times as effective as online advertising.”
There is some sympathy for operators. After all, many brands on the web don’t let competitors advertise on their sites. The difference here is that operators control so much of the inventory and traffic in mobile – and content providers so much of the demand.
It comes down to the old question of what kind of company operators want to be.
Stephen Upstone, managing director of European business at mobile ad agency AdInfuse, said: “Operators need to decide whether they’re media companies or not. They need to examine the business case comparing ad revenues against content – and then re-structure accordingly.”
The need to re-structure goes to the heart of the issue. One operator told ME: “As long as portals are run by category managers whose KPIs are based on own-brand content sold, then ad business will be turned away. The other challenge is that some operators count on-portal revenue as gross, but off-portal net. This means that off-portal revenues typically need to be three times higher than on-portal to generate the same amount of revenue.”
Against this, Upstone said one operator did a test in which it removed restrictions and found that ad revenues grew by up to 80 per cent, while content revenue fell by between 10 per cent and 15 per cent.
If this reflects the general drift of the market, then operators will need to think hard about their strategies.
One UK network exec admitted: “Ad targets are growing while downloads are falling, so we’re mindful that we have to embrace this as the way forward. If we piss off the agencies this early, we could set the whole market back.”
[VIA ME DAILY]
Bookmark on del.icio.us
