US and Japan to take mobile TV lead

Japan is expected to lead the market for mobile TV broadcast

Broadcast mobile TV will clock up sales revenues of $11.7bn worldwide by 2011, new research has predicted.

Japan is expected to lead the market with revenues reaching $2.9bn and the US will follow closely at $1.8bn, according to analyst firm Juniper Research.

Although the UK is still lagging behind these mobile TV leaders, it is also predicted to be a key market worth $989m by 2011.

While Japan is initially offering a free service on its ISDB-T 'One Seg' network, Juniper Research's study predicts that it will start charging for the service in 2008.

The Japanese, US and UK markets are described as "prime breeding grounds" for mobile television viewing mainly because of the large appetite for TV viewing.

South Korea has had a head start in broadcast mobile TV with its DMB efforts, but Japan and the US are expected to overtake it in terms of the number of users, purely based on the larger mobile subscriber base.

Japan, the US and South Korea will make up 39 per cent of the overall broadcast mobile TV subscriber market, while Germany, Italy, the UK, India and China will make up 36 per cent by 2011, according to the analyst firm.

Aditya Kaul, senior analyst at Juniper Research, and report author, stated: "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 watching mobile TV. "

However, there is still some scepticism in the likely degree of success for broadcast mobile TV.

"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," said Kaul.