August 24, 2005
Tease not sleaze on mobile phones
A reality check from The Guardian on mobile porn in the UK. "For customers who want them, there are wallpapers, screensavers, videos, animated scantily clad women and even "moantones" for those who find that Crazy Frog just doesn't do it for them.
But the figures do not match the hype. In its report into the mobile entertainment industry last month, industry expert Informa predicted that the market for erotic content for mobile devices will be worth $2.3bn (£1.3bn) by 2010 compared with just under $1bn this year. Within five years there will be more than 114 million regular users of adult services compared with 65 million now.
They may look good, but these figures are dwarfed by the overall mobile market. There are already well over 1 billion mobile phone users, and by 2010 that will have passed 3 billion, according to research by Gartner. Informa's prediction for the entire mobile phone content market, including music and gaming, is $43bn by 2010. Adult services will account for just 5% of the market.
Graeme Oxby, marketing director of 3, the UK's newest mobile phone operator, admits: "It is not very important in terms of the volume of usage. It is dwarfed by music and football and comedy.
"It was massively important on the internet partly at a time when next to nothing was charged for apart from access. For mobiles it is just a bit of the cake.
... "Operators are saying that it is not the big revenue driver, but they cannot be seen to be promoting adult content because it affects their brand as a mobile operator," she says.
The mobile phone operators' biggest fear is that adult content will be viewed by children".
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