Informa Telecoms & Media has launched its annual Mobile Market Status report for 2007, which includes a survey of more than 1,800 senion industry professionals. Within the whole industry 65% of respondents felt more confident for the industry’s prospects for 2007 than for 2006, but for operators that figure fell to 54%. The release goes on to suggest that operators will soon move from a subscription-based services model towards an advertising-based business model—although I’m still of the opinion that there isn’t enough spare advertising dollars to make up the revenue from mobile services (Informa’s own predictions are for an $11.35 billion mobile advertising market by 2011, significantly less than the industry’s current revenue) ... perhaps there’s some space for a cheaper service supported by advertising. “The telecommunications industry is evolving at lightening speed, undermining and refashioning business models for all players in the value chain,” comments Mark Newman, Informa’s Chief Research Officer. “In the future, a mobile business model could look much more like broadband and
Internet economics, with the operator charging for access to the Internet and deriving advertising and click-based revenues.”
Mobile content and other services are now seen as a way to slow the decline in ARPU, rather than to increase it. 41% of respondents to the survey thought mobile TV would be the most interesting service on offer last year—roughly how the industry felt about mobile music 12 months ago.
Informa subsidiary Telecoms.com has a piece up on the release.