Mobile TV? Maybe
September 28, 2007
Results from a survey of 2,000 European consumers by market analyst firm Canalys indicate that half have no interest in watching any kind of TV on a mobile phone, even if the service was free.
The findings highlight three potentially attractive mobile TV customer segments: The pay-TV subscriber: consumers that take pay-TV services (54 per cent of those surveyed) are more open to the concept of mobile TV, with many expecting access to the full range of channels that they receive at home. The heavy/active mobile user: mobile TV appeals to two-thirds of those regularly spending over E60 per month on their mobile phone subscription. Users of mobile download services such as games, music and ringtones are also far more open to the concept of mobile TV. Seventy three per cent of consumers that regularly use MySpace and 70 per cent of frequent YouTube viewers would consider using a mobile TV service.
“The results show that interest in mobile TV across Europe varies greatly,” said Adrian Drozd, Canalys Senior Analyst. “At present, Spain appears to be a strong potential market for mobile TV, with almost 66 per cent of respondents interested in the concept. In contrast, just 44 per cent of German and 41 per cent of French respondents would consider using a mobile TV service.”
In terms of pricing, 47 per cent of those European consumers that expressed interest in mobile TV would consider E10 per month reasonable value for money, but 36 per cent would consider it too expensive at this point.
The research findings also suggest that mobile operators will need to develop a broad range of content partnerships and charging models, and there is unlikely to be one type of killer content for mobile TV. Over half (56 per cent) of those respondents open to the idea of mobile TV said that they would watch live TV events, such as sports or reality shows.