Analyst firm Berg Insight has released a report that there were about 38 million viewers of mobile TV in Japan and South Korea in mid-2007, representing about 78 percent of the total mobile TV audience (implying that there are about 49 million mobile TV users globally). In October it was reported there were just over 4.2 million mobile TV users in South Korea, which means the vast majority of Berg’s numbers must be in Japan. My problem with this is that it appears to count as “viewers” anyone with a handset—since the service in Japan (and one of the two in Korea) are free I don’t think it’s an accurate estimate of the number of actual viewers. The report also goes on to downplay the importance of the standard wars, arguing that manufacturers will soon be putting in multi-standard chips anyway. (release)

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