London: The soccer World Cup in Germany will provide the catalyst for TV services on mobile phones to start taking off, but real growth will occur over the next five years, an industry report said on Wednesday.
Informa Telecoms & Media predicted some 210 million mobile TV subscribers worldwide by 2011, with the Asia-Pacific region leading the way with 95.1 million subscribers followed by Europe at 68.7 million.
Analysts at Informa forecast a "hockey stick" curve in the demand for mobile TV, with initial take up likely to be steady before climbing rapidly.
"(By) the 2008 Olympics, we'll all be much more prepared to watch TV on our phones and by the 2010 World Cup the infrastructure will be mature and one in 13 mobile phone users worldwide will own a mobile TV handset," said senior analyst at Informa Telecoms and Media David McQueen,.
Live TV broadcasts to mobile phones are only now taking off in Europe, notably in Germany and Italy, helped by the soccer World Cup during which operators such as 3 Italia and Debitel are expected to broadcast matches to mobile phones.
Informa forecast revenues of $300 million from users accessing streaming and broadcast services during the World Cup.
European mobile operators have until now offered TV on phones by streaming content over their networks, which unlike broadcast technologies suffers from capacity constraints and cannot reach a mass market.
A number of European countries are in the midst of mobile TV trails aimed at ascertaining customer demand, pricing and content for such services.
Informa forecast Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld or DVB-H, backed by the world's top mobile handset maker Nokia, as the dominant mobile TV technology, followed by MediaFLO which is backed by wireless technology supplier Qualcomm.
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