Mobie phone entertainment continues to soar

The surge in smart phone usage, and the attendant rise in downloads of consumer-oriented Applications, is attributed as the driving force behind the continued spectacular expansion of the mobile phone entertainment sector by the latest Juniper Research survey out this week.

The report values the international Mobile Entertainment market at $33 billion for last year, rising to $54 billion in 2015, and observes that the combination of app stores and smart phones has created an unprecedented level of awareness and usage of services such as social media, games, video and streamed music.

At the same time, the transition from the “walled garden” business model to an open mobile
Internet has created greater opportunities for D2C players in niche areas such as gambling and adult services, the report notes.

The rise in consumer adoption of rich media content has additionally prompted unprecedented interest in mobile channels from major brands, which are allocating increasing proportions of digital budget to mobile. As a result, content providers in particular are benefitting from the additional revenue stream created through in-app advertising.

Report author Dr Windsor Holden, comments: “We’ve witnessed a quite dramatic evolution of the mobile entertainment market over the past few years, in terms of type of content, scale of content and how that content is monetised.

“The challenge for the players across the redefined mobile ecosystem is to recognise how best to leverage their strengths to ensure that their respective revenue streams are optimised.”

Other key findings from the report include:

• Despite the erosion of the ringtone market, mobile music will remain the largest single contributor to mobile entertainment content revenues over the next five years

• The fastest growing product sector will be mobile gambling, followed by social media

• On a regional basis, Far East & China will continue to account for the largest share of revenues, followed by Western Europe.