Report Projects Significant Gains in Asia Pacific Mobile-TV Market

SINGAPORE, March 12:
According to a new Frost & Sullivan report, the mobile-video-services
market in 12 Asia-Pacific countries, excluding Japan, earned revenues of more
than $440 million in 2007 and is projected to reach $1.88 billion by the end of
2013.

South Korea accounted for
87 percent, or $383.7 million, of the revenues in 2007 and will remain the
biggest market for mobile video in Asia Pacific outside of Japan. However,
other potential leading markets include Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan,
Australia and New Zealand.

“Amid the growing interest
in triple-play and mobile advertising, mobile TV has been the buzzword in the
Asia-Pacific mobile and wireless market,” noted Shaker Amin, a Frost &
Sullivan industry analyst. “The recent spate of trials and the commercial
launches of broadcast networks in Japan and South Korea indicate that the
mobile-TV fever could well catch on throughout the Asia-Pacific region.”

Two of the regions most
mature mobile markets, South Korea and Japan, have introduced mobile-TV
broadcast services (ahead of the other Asia-Pacific countries) built on
homegrown standards. South Korea spearheaded the DMB (Digital Multimedia
Broadcasting) standards, launching S-DMB (Satellite Digital Multimedia
Broadcasting) and T-DMB (Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) in 2005.
Japan launched ISDBT (Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting-Terrestrial), or
1-seg, in 2006. Other markets that have commercially launched DVB-H mobile TV
broadcast services include Vietnam’s VMC (Vietnam Multimedia Corporation) in
September 2006, and the Philippines’ Smart Communications in February 2007.

In the rest of the
Asia-Pacific markets, DVB-H and MediaFLO remain the most commonly selected
standards for trials. In China, T-DMB (a different version from South Korea’s)
and CMMB (China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting), both homegrown standards, are
being evaluated.

The report notes that
pricing is the biggest hurdle to a wider uptake of mobile-video and TV
services. In 2007, the total mobile ARPU in Asia Pacific stood at $16.8
(including Japan), largely due to the region’s lower disposal income. In
addition, mobile-TV broadcast service (multicast) requires compatible handsets,
which are not widely available throughout the Asia Pacific.

“In most markets,
mobile-video service becomes especially expensive when a user exceeds the
stipulated amount of data in a ‘flat-rate’ plan,” says Amin. “Considering that
this is a major restraint to greater uptake, mobile operators could follow the
example of South Korean operators who have implemented an ‘eat-all-you-can’
flat rate for data charges to encourage adoption.”

—By Mansha Daswani