Growth in user spend on mobile entertainment services will slow dramatically over the next two years unless key markets emerge from recession, according to a new report from Juniper Research.
The
Mobile Entertainment report found that, under a worst case scenario of a prolonged global recession, mobile entertainment revenues would increase by nearly $13 billion over the next five years, against a pre-downturn forecast of more than $26 billion.
It argued that the decline in consumer discretionary spend was likely to lead to both reduced adoption of, and churn away from, subscription-based content, while the frequency of ad hoc, one-off downloads of games and music would also be adversely affected.
Windsor Holden, author of the report, said: “While operators have made significant strides in reducing the costs of bundled data, the overwhelming majority of mobile users are prepaid customers who want to sample mobile internet usage before committing to a bundle. And in most cases, data costs are so high that they act as a disincentive to such initial usage.”
Andrew Bud, global chair of the Mobile Entertainment Forum, said: “We concur with this report’s identification of so many factors driving growth in mobile entertainment worldwide.
“It is clearly positive that Juniper concludes this market will grow so substantially over the next few years despite the recession.”
Last month, Informa Telecoms & Media forecast that the mobile content and services market is predicted to generate over $340 billion in end-user service revenues in 2013, up from around $183 billion in 2008 (see Spam And Viruses Deter Online Users).
comScore recently published figures showing that 93% of iPhone owners accessed mobile media in January (see 93% of iPhone users accessed mobile media in January).
According to comScore, mobile e-mail was used by 75% of British iPhone owners, making it the most popular type of mobile content consumed on the device.
