Grasping how successful the mobile phone industry has become

Victor Keegan for The Guardian reports on why mobile content generates more revenue than on the Internet: "Because most content on the web is free whereas mobile phones arrived with a payment system pre-installed for calls, followed by a premium service for texting. If the web had had its own payment system it would have taken a different course."

"It is difficult to grasp how successful the mobile phone industry has become. People think of it as a sideshow compared to the internet, yet in terms of revenues generated from content, it is already far bigger.

Revenues from the web are about $25bn (£12.5bn) but the content on mobile networks is reckoned by Informa to be worth $31bn - and that is before music and mobile TV take off in a big way.

Tomi Ahonen, a strategy consultant, points out that whereas porn and gambling drove revenues on the internet, five content groups are more successful than adult material on mobile phones: music, infotainment, images, videogames and web browsing."

emily | 12:45 PM | Random Stats |
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