June 15, 2007
Porn industry says U.S. mobile market is tough to crack
The porn industry has so far been unable to deliver its adult content by mobile phones in the U.S. largely because telecoms carriers have been unwilling to risk a public backlash, said sex film producers at the Digital Hollywood conference on Thursday, reports Red Herring.
"While mobile porn is popular in Europe and other parts of the world, where mobile carriers can block minors from viewing porn, U.S carriers have declined to adopt age verification infrastructure—or take any other steps to peddle porn—for fear of the reaction from conservative Americans, said Clint Fayling, of BrickHouse Mobile, which bundles porn content for mobile phones in Europe.
Despite concerns of the carriers, porn industry insiders still see a huge opportunity in mobile porn. Sex content is widely believed to account for 60-80 percent of Internet traffic, and it’s expected to become a $3.3 billion mobile industry globally by 2011, according to Juniper Research.
But for mobile carriers in the U.S., data services—and especially video—are still a small part of their business. Even assuming porn would become a large part of that, risking any voice business drop off from negative PR just isn’t worth it yet, said Mr. Fayling, who offers soft-core porn content for U.S. No carriers were represented on the panel."
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