TeleAnalytics’ Mobile TV Tracking Service’s forecasts (pdf file) 80.8 million – 81.9 million mobile television users by the end of 2009.
The research firm says, “Despite the financial crisis, mobile TV device sales will at worst remain flat, but an increase of up to two percent may be witnessed with respect to the 2008 sales total.”
The firm’s “Second Anniversary Issue” for mobile TV (see left) provides detailed statistics about usage around the world. These include:
“Korea: In Q1-09, Korean Mobile TV (both DMBs) device volumes rebounded and were 3% higher than the volumes witnessed in the same quarter one year earlier. SKT celebrated its 2 millionth S-DMB subscriber in mid-May.
“The Korean automotive MoTV market segment is the first MoTV market segment anywhere in the world to show serious signs of significant saturation. At the end of Q1-09, the Korean automotive MoTV penetration exceeded 46% of the total addressable (covered) number of Korean passenger car registrations.
“Japan: Japanese Mobile TV handset volumes have been significantly affected by the financial crisis and are likely to remain around the 6.2 million per quarter mark for the balance of the year.
“In Q1-09, One-Seg penetration among the total number of Japanese handsets sold climbed to 81% from 61% one year earlier. End Q1-09 Mobile TV (One-Seg) penetration in the 12+ market segment stood at 39.4%.
“China: H1-09 CMMB device sales disappointed the CMMB vendors and SARFT's commercialization drive has up to now proven to be badly conceived and executed. Things are likely to improve in H2-09, but SARFT is quite unlikely to reach its 2009 target (10 million).
“EU: European MoTV is basically stagnant and as many as half a million DVB-H handsets may be sold this year, due mainly to the normal device replacement process rather than due to new DVB-H adds.
“Brazil: One-Seg device pricing started falling. Brazilian ISDB-T USBs cost $225 in Spring 2008, now they cost just over $50. Additionally, handsets just over the $400 mark were recently introduced (the LG Scarlet).
“The average quarterly 2009 device volume is likely to be more than 28% higher than the volume witnessed in Q4-08 and the Brazilian Mobile TV market has started to get flooded by automotive ISDB-T STBs, which have questionable prospects for more than one reason.
“US: FLO started expanding shortly after the US ASO. ATSC-M/H is getting started in late summer. For both networks, 2010 will be the pivotal year.”
“Air Interfaces: This year, Mobile TV device sales in Japan and Brazil (ISDB-T) will exceed 27 million units. T-DMB will close the year with more than 16 million users, all of which originated from a single country (Korea).”
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