The future of Television on your mobile phone

There will be a frantic fight to control video on cell phones over the next three years, with many services, typically video delivered through separate datacast networks, having just three stable years to make payback or die.  
 
After that the arrival of new platforms which support much higher screen definition and the ability of mobiles to drive TV screens, coupled with the desire for cellular operators to take control of video offerings, will mean that the current generation of video formats will be significantly displaced. The backdrop to this is the handset becoming a portable DVR with capacities of today’s living room based devices, creating a new era of disruption.  
 
Despite this, or perhaps because of the frantic need to rollout at speed, we are forecasting the delivery of a minimum of 164 million TV capable handsets being shipped by 2011, with the potential to reach double this figure depending on how operators and broadcasters respond. This is a market where China, the US and Europe will each run neck and neck in terms of service numbers and consumer acceptance, with each one a vastly different landscape.  
 
The report warns:  
· The video market will splinter into multiple tiers, some advertising based, some subscription based and others free and designed purely to bring customers to new cellular platforms  
· The battle between technology formats in datacast technology will be overshadowed by the battle between broadcasters and cellular operators to control the new market  
· The very fabric of the global advertiser eco-system will be at stake, with global advertising revenues shared over too many, unsustainable business models. Eventually there will have to be fatalities.  
 
Rethink also predicts that there will be a viable market for datacast mobile TV services which go to devices which are not cellular connected handsets, and by 2011 there will be 40 million such devices in play.  
 
This report is designed to aid the planning of operators, broadcasters, technology suppliers, equipment vendors and regulators.  www.rethinkresearch.biz