Spending on Mobile Media and Services to Top $102 Billion by 2012

BOSTON, April 18: A new
report from Strategy Analytics says that total spending on mobile media
services by consumers and advertisers will jump from nearly $47 billion in 2007
to more than $102 billion by 2012, driven by web access, video and music
products.

The Strategy Analytics report,
Global Cellular Media Forecast 2007-2011, projects that the population of cellular users
engaging in mobile content and applications delivered over cellular networks
will ramp up from 406 million to more than 870 million across the same period,
with 25 percent of all cellular users using mobile media applications by 2012.

Growth in
adoption and spending in mobile media will be enabled by a combination of rising
3G penetration, falling cellular data access prices, improvements in user
experience and content availability, and a rising contribution from
advertising.

Nitesh Patel, a senior
analyst of global wireless practice at Strategy Analytics, noted: “The combination
of falling mobile data pricing, an increasingly open approach from network
operators towards partnering with popular consumer media brands, the lowering
of barriers to off-portal service accessibility and improvements in device
usability will lead to an improved environment for mobile content and service
adoption. Consequently, over the next five years we project continued growth in
consumer acceptance and spending across a range of media applications
distributed over cellular networks, particularly web access, video, music and
mobile TV.”

David Kerr, the VP of
global wireless practice, added, “Relative growth in consumer spending on
mobile media applications will be surpassed by advertisers, as they look to
exploit the maturing cellular content channel as a means to deliver their
marketing and advertising messages to key target segments.”

—By Irene Lew