Mobile video phone sales surge; paid services and revenue do not

CAMPBELL, California — Market research firm Infonetics Research released a new Mobile Video Equipment, Phones, Services, and Subscribers report, which tracks DVB-H, DVB-SH, 3G, MBMS, TdTV, FLO, and CMMB products and vendors, including Apple, LG, Motorola, Nokia, ONDA, RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and others.

Analyst Note

“Though video-capable phones continue to become more widely available, subscriber uptake of pay TV services (not free-to-air video) continues to disappoint. A combination of poor macroeconomic conditions, sub par 3G network coverage for streamed video services, and pricing that puts mobile video services out of reach for many consumers is contributing to the lackluster growth of mobile video services around the world. While mobile video services are expected to eventually grow significantly, until operators can combine broadcast, on-demand, and sideloading, revenue will remain a drop in the bucket of overall mobile service revenue,” explains Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband and video at Infonetics Research.

Report Highlights

• Infonetics Research expects 397 million mobile video phones to sell worldwide in 2013, creating a market worth tens of billions of dollars
• Asia Pacific is the mobile video titan, with the highest volume of mobile video phone sales
• One primary driver for mobile video adoption is access to live sporting events, particularly soccer, cricket, and motor sports
• Nokia leads in worldwide DVB-H phone revenue market share
• Broadcast mobile video content delivered using the Chinese Multimedia Broadcast (CMMB) standard is already reaching 1 million users
  • With an addressable market of hundreds of millions of phones, CMMB will become the world’s leading broadcast mobile video technology in the long run
• The number of mobile video subscribers hit 41 million worldwide in 2008 and is expected to grow nearly 10-fold by the end of 2013

Report Synopsis

Infonetics’ mobile video report provides worldwide FLO and DVB-H mobile video phone market share for LG, Motorola, Nokia, ONDA, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and others, as well as market size and forecasts through 2013 for mobile video phones, video encoders, mobile video subscribers, and mobile video services (DVB-H, DVB-SH, 3G/MBMS/TdTV, FLO, CMMB).

The report tracks phones made by Apple, Asus, BenQ, Casio Hitachi, Chinacom, E-TEN (Glofiish), Fujitsu, Giga, HKC, Huawei, Kyocera, Lenova, LG Electronics, Mitsubishi, Mod, Motorola, Nokia, ONDA, Panasonic, Pantech, RIM, Sagem, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Sony Ericsson, and ZTE.