Mobile content revenues to hit $65bn in 2016
May 8, 2013
Annual revenue generated from content delivered to mobile handsets and tablets is expected to increase by nearly $25 billion over the next three years, reaching $65 billion by 2016, a report from Juniper has found. According to the report, growth would primarily be fuelled by an upsurge in game, video and eBook purchases via tablet devices, allied to increased opportunity for content monetisation via DCB (Direct Carrier Billing) on smartphones.
The report observed that eBooks currently comprise the largest revenue stream on tablets, with eReader applications such as Amazon, Nook and Kobo proving as popular as the respective eReader devices. However, tablets are experiencing a sharp increase in both paid and free video applications, while consumer gaming spend is expected to migrate to tablets from dedicated portable gaming devices such as the Nintendo 3DS and the Sony PS Vita.
Furthermore, while the primary billing mechanism for OTT storefronts will remain the credit/debit card, storefronts such as Google Play and BlackBerry App World are increasingly employing direct carrier billing as a complementary monetisation mechanism. As report author Windsor Holden observed, “While the availability of direct carrier billing is patchy, the various benefits which the mechanism offers – higher conversion rates, opportunities to monetise unbanked customers – suggest that deployments will rise significantly in the medium term”.
Other key findings from the report include:
- Music and video now account for nearly half of all mobile content revenues, although the increased video traffic has implications for mobile network capacity.
- The convergence of the gaming and the social networking spaces has been one of the major drivers behind the post-download monetisation opportunity.