Global mobile TV revenues to exceed $20bn

According to ABI Research, worldwide adoption will accelerate starting in 2012 through 2015, and on the way overcome significant obstacles.

One of the disruptive influences identified by ABI is the proliferation of new types of mobile devices with larger, high resolution displays and richer multimedia capabilities than cellular handsets.

However, it added that the three main barriers to take-up so far have been:

• A lack of free and simulcast local and national TV programs as a primer for fee-based premium content in most countries outside of Japan and South Korea.
• The 3G service is inadequate for mobile TV. This should be remedied by the deployment of 4G networks over the next few years, however.
• There are few mobile devices containing the chipset required to pick up free-to-air mobile broadcast TV services.

Fritz Jordan, ABI Research principal analyst, said: “Since mobile TV won’t be just the province of cellular operators but also of broadcast TV providers, we will see more TV-centric mobile devices: automotive infotainment systems, media tablets, MIDs, and netbooks.

“Mobile consumers won’t be forced to go through a mobile operator and have to pay for voice, messaging, email and Internet plans first, just to get mobile TV.”

Nielsen’s latest Three Screen Report revealed that while mobile online video viewing is still fairly limited in the US, it has shown impressive year on year growth of 51.2%.