Mobile Content Owners Struggled To Grow Revenues In 2009, Survey Finds

MEF Business Confidence Study, 2009

The Mobile Entertainment Forum has conducted a survey of 100 people from 80 different U.S. companies to gauge how confident they are about the mobile content industry.

While the survey mostly indicates signs of a recovery with 42 percent of respondents expecting revenues to grow by 28 percent last year, content owners and application developers were the least optimistic of the bunch. Jim Beddows, MEF Americas Chairmen said there’s likely two trends driving this: mobile advertising are not meeting expectations and some of their more historical revenues are falling because of the move to more open devices, like smartphones.

Traditionally, operators paid for content to encourage subscribers to sign up for data packages, and customers signed up for more subscription services, like ringtones. Both of those sectors have become less attractive as consumers go on the open internet for content and entertainment.

The survey found that only 39 percent of content owners expected revenues to increase 20 percent or more last year compared to 2008. Off-deck aggregators were the most optimistic, with nearly half of them, or 49 percent, expecting 20 percent-plus growth. Beddows: “Originally content was provided through a la carte purchases or subscriptions, but now with the mobile internet, the big expectation is mobile advertising, and it really hasn

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