eMarketer has combined some numbers from Telephia and Forrester here and run them through some analysis to work out why the number of people using the mobile internet in the US is so low (16%). We’ve covered the figures (34.6 million mobile web users in June) so I’ll get to the analysis. They reckon its not just a slow rollout of next-generation networks (on a global scale it’s not actually that slow, it’s just not the fastest) that is holding back the mobile content/data market, but that the sector “does not encourage an independent mobile content sector. The DoCoMo model in Japan, which gives mobile content providers great incentive to develop innovative content and applications, does not exist in the US, and it is therefore unsurprising that not one of the 10 most popular mobile Web sites is a unique independent mobile content provider.” Same old story, down to including DoCoMo as an example. All it needs is one US carrier to test it to see if it’s right…
“One of the significant ways in which DoCoMo has developed such a flourishing mobile content sector is simply by paying the content provider in a timely fashion…According to eMarketer’s mobile analyst, John Gauntt, “US operators are still scrambling to get their billing systems up to snuff for doing more than voice traffic.”
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