Smartphones To Drive Mobile TV Adoption

The growing adoption of smartphones is expected to give a strong fillip to the growth of the mobile television penetration worldwide. According to a recent study by Juniper Research Ltd., the number of streamed mobile TV users on smartphones will reach 240 million by 2014.

Besides smartphone adoption, factors like TV-on-demand and a change in consumer preferences (watching television on PCs and mobiles) to view the content will also aid the boom.

While India may still be way behind in the mobile TV popularity, the roll-out of new technologies like 3G and 4G is expected to accelerate the trend. Some significant challenges such as non-attractive price plans and lack of quality smartphones, however, will make the case weak for mobile TV adoption in the markets like India.

The research did not specify which markets will drive the revenues, but it says that by 2016, around 10 percent of the mobile-TV revenue will be generated on the tablets and subscriptions will make up the vast majority of this revenue.

As content consumption patterns are constantly changing, mobile TV allows customers to see their favorite channels and content live wherever they are. The global mobile TV market has been witnessing a boom for the past few years which was also announced by various research reports and predictions. Last year, MarketResearch.com, a research firm had predicted the number of mobile TV subscribers worldwide to grow at a CAGR of around 43 percent during 2011-2014 to reach about 792.5 million by the end of 2014.

Jatinder Singh, Principal Correspondent, Light Reading India