US and Japan to Lead $11.7bn Mobile TV Market

A report from analyst firm Juniper Research predicts that Broadcast Mobile TV will reach revenues of $11.7bn worldwide by 2011. Japan is predicted to lead the market with revenues reaching $2.9bn and the US will follow closely at $1.8bn. The UK is also predicted to be a key market at $989m.

Although Japan is initially offering a free service on its ISDB-T `One Seg’ network, Juniper Research predicts that it will start charging for the service in 2008. Japan, US and UK markets are prime breeding grounds for mobile television viewing mainly because of the large appetite for TV viewing, Juniper said.

Although South Korea has had a head start in broadcast Mobile TV with its DMB efforts, Japan and the US will overtake it in terms of the number of subscribers, purely based on the larger mobile subscriber base, the report said.

Of the overall broadcast Mobile TV subscriber market Japan, US and South Korea will make up 39%, with the other major markets being Germany, Italy, UK, India and China, making up 36% by 2011. Juniper Research has short listed 26 key countries/regions around the world for broadcast Mobile TV services.

Aditya Kaul, Senior Analyst at Juniper Research and report author said: “2006 has been an interesting year for Mobile TV with a large number of announcements concerning broadcast Mobile TV trials and rollouts, many of them timed with the World Cup in mind. The key highlights have been an increased uptake in streamed Mobile TV services and surprising results from broadcast Mobile TV trials, showing a dramatic increase in the average time spent by the consumer on watching Mobile TV.”

However, there is still some skepticism in the degree of success for broadcast Mobile TV. Kaul said: “Broadcast Mobile TV is definitely a step in the right direction but its success will depend on many factors such as the type of content, content rights, security, spectrum availability, business models, regulation and quality of indoor coverage.”