Mobile entertainment market to soar over next 5 years
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(InfoWorld) - Revenue from mobile entertainment services could soar over the next five years thanks to high-speed mobile phones and a range of new offerings, according to market researcher Informa Telecoms & Media. Informa expects the market for mobile entertainment services, including games, gambling, and adult content, to grow to $38.12 billion in 2011 from $18.84 billion in 2006. Mobile music will continue to be the major revenue generator, although its overall share of the market will fall from 40 percent in 2006 to 36 percent in 2011 as new forms of entertainment, such as mobile TV and video services, gain consumer interest. User-generated content, a relatively new development that gained momentum in 2006, will continue to grow as new applications begin to extend communities to users on the move. Informa expects revenue from user-generated services to be $13.17 billion by 2011. The arrival of mobile phone technologies that offer high transmission speeds, particularly HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), has helped create a Web surfing and video streaming experience similar to what users are accustomed to on their PCs, according to Informa.
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While it would seem that the growth of smartphones, with their bigger screens and faster processors, would be good news for mobile gaming, handsets like the iPhone are in fact hurting the mobile game industry in the short term, one expert said Sunday.Apple&#39;s iPhone is a capable phone that holds promise for the future of gaming, said Travis Boatman, vice president of worldwide studios for Electronic Arts&#39; mobile division, speaking during a panel session at&#160;the Consumer Electronics Show&#160;in Las Vegas. &quot;But it&#39;s a replacement for someone who had a Razr before. They still want their content but there&#39;s no distribution platform in place so there&#39;s a negative impact on the industry,&quot; he said.Because Apple so far hasn&#39;t allowed iPhone users to download just anything, iPhone users may be giving up games that they played on a phone they previously owned, he said. &quot;These devices are capable and powerful,&quot; he said. &quot;They&#39;ll be great in the long term but it will take some time as people adapt to devices.&quot;The problem of transferring games to new phones has actually plagued the mobile gaming industry since its inception. When users upgrade to a new phone, they most often can&#39;t bring a game that they bought for their old phone along with them.Mobile virtual network operator Helio is one of the few operators that has taken steps to solve that problem. Because most of the phones that Helio sells have similar specifications, games usually will work on a new phone a customer might buy. Helio stores the games for users on its servers and users can re-download games to a new phone, said Leo Jun, senior manager of games for Helio.That&#39;s a more difficult situation for other operators that sell a much wider variety of phones, each with differing capabilities that may not support all games. It&#39;s not realistic to expect that a game publisher make their games re-downloadable to people who upgrade their phones, said Boatman. He compares it to the game console market. &quot;If you bought a PlayStation 2 and you buy an Xbox &#39;790&#39; four years later, do you think EA games is going to redevelop that game and not charge you for it?&quot; he said. &quot;It&#39;s not inexpensive.&quot;But other even more basic problems also plague the mobile game industry, which has had stagnant growth. The percentage of mobile phone users who have ever bought a mobile game increased from 10 percent in 2005 to just 12 percent in 2007, said Michael Cai, an analyst with Parks Associates. One reason for that very slow growth is that there are simply too many games and often no good way for end users to trial games before buying them, the experts said.Helio users can try out a game for a week for US$0.99. &quot;It emphasizes the importance of quality content,&quot; Jun said. Helio expects that the service will encourage developers to release fewer but more quality games.But in most cases, end users only have the option of choosing games based on their titles. Unlike five years ago, most mobile users now know that they can play games. But they clearly aren&#39;t buying games in volume, perhaps because many of them may already feel burned after taking a chance and buying a game only to find that it&#39;s low-quality, said Jun. Many may be unlikely to try again. &quot;The preconception is that mobile games aren&#39;t that good,&quot; said Jun.Still, the panelists were confident that mobile gaming will pick up in the future. Because smartphone use is growing, users are also becoming more accustomed to the idea of downloading software to their phones. &quot;Google is training people to install Gmail and maps to their phones,&quot; noted Matthew Bellows, general manager and vice president of marketing for Floodgate Entertainment, a game developer. &quot;That could be a game changer from the consumer expectation standpoint.&quot;
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The market for content and services on  cell phones is expected to grow to $150 billion by 2011, as  access to the web while on the move becomes easier and faster,  research from Informa Telecoms & Media showed.
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InfoWorld - New research has confirmed that India&#39;s mobile phone market is set for a period of fast growth, with revenue from cellular services expected to jump by more than 18 percent each year for the next five years.
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Imagine turning on your mobile phone to watch breaking news or an entertainment program. The idea could soon become reality following an announcement last week that five of the world&#39;s largest mobile phone
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LONDON - Video game and mobile phone companies are set to rake in the cash this year as customers use phones to zap space invaders or sink game-winning golf putts, pushing the mobile gaming market over US$1 billion (NZ$1.
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Analysts expect mobile telecom services will grow more than 5 percent per year, but equipment market will shrink.
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Sales of media on the Internet and on  cell phones are expected to rise 23 percent over the next four  years, driven by TV networks and film studios putting more of  content online, according to a new IBM  study.
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Global smart phone shipments are set to rise dramatically over the next five years, as better devices and lower prices combine with other factors to fuel growthand meet
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Research firm expects market for OLEDs used in displays and lighting to reach $15.5 billion by 2014.
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The popularity of mobiles packed with features is set to explode as they get better and cheaper, say analysts.
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Global mobile phone use will top 3.25  billion -- equivalent to around half the world&#39;s population --  in 2007 as cell phone demand booms in China, India and Africa,  a survey said on Wednesday.
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Samsung Electronics, the world's second-largest mobile phone maker, expects its handset sales to rise 16 per cent next year to more than 100m units.
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India produced nearly 31 million mobile phones last year, at a value of about $5 billion.
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SAN FRANCISCO (Billboard) - This past year marked the  beginning of a revolutionary experiment to sell and distribute  digital music to and from mobile phones. The stage is only just  being set, with the business models, pricing and marketing  issues still evolving.
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Revenue from cellular services is expected to jump by more than 18 percent each year for the next five years.
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Although set to remain a niche market, mobile gaming will continue its rise as a generator of wireless data usage and revenue, new research has claimed.