Report: 140 Million Subscribers To Broadcast Mobile TV By 2011

There are currently 40 million people watching broadcast mobile television around the world according to a report from consultancy Arthur D. Little. That includes 18 million in Japan, 17 million in South Korea, 1.2 million in China and 1 million in Italy. This is far below the level which was predicted, but ADL expects the number of viewers will expand to 140 million by 2011 as carriers seek ways to offset the commoditization of voice and data access services. However, mobile operators can only generate 1 euro (US$1.30) profit per broadcast mobile TV subscriber (assuming a critical mass of 10 percent of mobile subscribers using the service and paying 6 euros a month), so a fundamental part of running a profitable mobile TV service will be bringing down the costs of launching and running it.

In order to improve the broadcast mobile TV business ADL claims taht regulators need to step in and support the nascent industry, fostering and moderating negotiations between mobile operators, terrestrial network operators and content providers. The report also notes that people have a lot of options for watching mobile video, so “broadcast mobile TV services need to offer a more superior user experience in order to motivate users to pay monthly subscription fees for the right to watch 10-15 TV channels, many of which they receive anyways at home”. There are other reasons for operators to offer broadcast mobile TV services, including the ability to differentiate their services, increase customer loyalty and offload traffic from 3G streaming TV services.

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