The market for mobile communities and user generated content (UGC) will be worth $13.2 billion by 2011, with photo and chat based services being the top revenue generators, according to a new report from Informa Telecoms and Media and strategic partner, the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF).
MEF says that chat services currently represent the largest segment of the market, driven by the fact that they are handset agnostic and can be conducted over the most popular form of mobile data, SMS.
However, as increasing numbers of photo and video enabled devices enter the market, the volume of users uploading images or clips is expected to grow significantly.
In 2006, 46 million users are expected to submit video clips to services such as SeeMeTV or YouTube from their mobile phone, rising to 198 million by 2011.
Patrick Parodi, Global Chair MEF, said: “Mobile communities which combine user-generated content (UGC), branded content and always-on user interaction are a key growth driver for the mobile entertainment industry.
“Taking communities mobile combines entertainment and user interactivity on a new level, reinforcing the mobile handset’s position as the leading portable entertainment device. We set up the MEF community initiative to focus on understanding the user behaviour and business models which harness these communities and have the potential to create over 13 billion dollars of value in the next 5 years.”
Daniel Winterbottom, senior analyst at Informa and author of the report, said: “The meteoric rise of such sites as MySpace, Bebo and YouTube shows significant consumer demand for social interaction in the digital space.
“Adding mobility to these services represents a huge opportunity for mobile operators, who will benefit from a reduction in churn levels, as well as significant increases in data traffic.”
A recent report from Analysys said that revenues from mobile entertainment services are expected to total $5.2 billion in 2006, growing to over $7 billion in 2007 (see Entertainment To Drive US Mobile Data Revenues).
Meanwhile, research from comScore Networks said that internet users from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK are more likely to use their mobile phones to go online than internet users in the US (see Europeans More Likely Than Americans To Go Online Via Mobiles).
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