From 26.3 Million Mobile TV Users in 2007 to 51.6 Million at the End of 2008

Thursday, September 4th, 2008
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The more than three year old Mobile TV market is entering its mass market phase with the worldwide number of Mobile TV users expected to double from 26.3 million at the end of 2007 to 51.6 million at the end of 2008.

TORONTO, Ontario — On the basis of monthly adoption data for all commercial Mobile TV (Broadcast) networks since the beginning of the Mobile TV Times (May 2005) up until March 2008 or later, Issue No 5 of the quarterly TeleAnalytics Mobile TV Tracking Service 5 calculates the end 2008 Mobile TV user counts (51.6 million in total). The issue also analyzes the complete set of Q1-08 adoption figures, summarizes the key Mobile TV developments up until the end of July 2008, and provides detailed, quantitative, short-term end-08 projections for all Mobile TV metrics of interest.

Highlights From Issue No. 5 Follow

The Mobile TV Metrics: The Q1-08 Mobile TV new-adds exceeded 28% of the end Q4-08 Mobile TV user count and Q1-08 was the first quarter where more than 10 million (10.73M) Mobile TV devices were sold. The short-term projections of Issue No. 5 show an end-08 Mobile TV user count of 51.6 million, a value that is within 1.5% of the 2008 figure determined by TeleAnalytics’ long-term Mobile TV forecasts for the 2007-2011 period.

Europe: In Q1-08, Europe still only had the Italian DVB-H market trying to compete with the exploding mar-kets of Korea and Japan. APAC ended the quarter with 33 times more Mobile TV users than the EU. DVB-H’s market share in terms of Mobile TV handsets sold worldwide fell to 3.3%.

US: In Q1-08, FLO still had to rely only on the Verizon retail product which, as previously analyzed, failed to deliver subscriber counts in line with the investments made. AT&T finally launched in May.

Japan: The third Japanese wave arrived in November 2007 and for the next six months, the One-Seg monthly market share among all handsets sold in Japan only mildly fluctuated around the 60% mark. Japan will finish the year with more than 32% of its total mobile subscriber basis having been penetrated by One-Seg.

Korea: The Korean Mobile TV explosion and the flow of red ink for both networks continues. In Q1-08, T-DMB reversed the slight quarter after quarter decrease of its new-adds figures and S-DMB rose out of its pre-Christmas stagnation to add 47,000 new subs.

Italy: In Q1-08, the growth engine of the Italian DVB-H market, 3-Italy, added just about 15% of the number of DVB-H subs it added a year ago. Issue No. 5 analyzes both the challenges of the Italian DVB-H market and the new 3-Italy strategy introduced at the end of Q2-08.

Austria: The Austrian DVB-H launch happened just in time for the soccer games. In Austria the DVB civil war is fought exclusively among the country’s MNOs and an Austrian MNO became the first ever Mobile TV re-tailer to publicly complain about the quality of the DVB-H product it sells. Early adoption figures suggest an annualized population penetration rate in the [0.4%-0.7% range.

Switzerland & the Netherlands: It is not yet officially known if these two countries will follow the Austrian norms in terms of annual Mobile TV population penetration rates; the phenomenal indoor-outdoor coverage figures claimed by KPN can potentially help. KPN has yet to provide any insight into its definition of “indoor” and “outdoor” coverage.

France: The French regulator’s first deadline for the new DVB-H licensees is the 15th of September. At the end of July, many in France doubted if the thorny issues that were not addressed before or during the licens-ing process would allow for the deadline to be met.

China and Brazil: These major markets are coming on line and the outlook for both the Chinese CMMB and the Brazilian ISDB-T is good. Both markets are starting too late in the year for device volumes, in line with the existing market potential, to be attained.

The Mobile 3.0 (DE) and MOBAHO (JP) Misfortunes: Some of the reasons behind the recently acknowledged German and Japanese misfortunes are common. As analyzed, the fact that Mobile TV Laptops-USBs accounted for only 0.27% of the total number of Mobile TV devices sold in Q1-08 is relevant.

More: TeleAnalytics Mobile TV Tracking Service (Issue 5)