MOBILE CONTENT IN ASIA

The mobile communications and information market in Asia is one of the most important in the world - in terms of its overall size, its growth rate and its innovative services. Some 850 million subscribers were signed up to mobile services in 2005, with this total expanding by 25% annually.

Mobile markets in Asia range from those which are large, fast-growing but relatively under-developed such as India and China, to small but mature as in Hong Kong and Singapore. Regardless, there is plenty of room for additional growth with overall regional penetration at 23%. By the end of this decade, Asia is expected to account for 50% of worldwide mobile subscribers with over one billion subscribers in China and India alone.

Asia?s mobile communications service providers are also innovation leaders. From the widespread use of SMS to the early introduction of 3G services, users in Asian markets have been early adopters since the first days of mobile communications in the late 1980s.

As elsewhere in the world, 3G is off to a patchy start with services available in Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea and Japan. Relatively high prices and a lack of compelling content and applications remain the key inhibitors of real returns on investment made in 3G infrastructure and licences. Full regional interoperability with Japan and Korea now on the same standard as the rest of the region does, however, open up new opportunities.

Mobile data services are, though, gaining momentum and factors unique to Asia, including low PC ownership in some markets and unreliable fixed line access will push mobile data growth even faster.

Messaging services (including SMS and MMS) generated a total of 41.2% of mobile data revenues in Asia in 2005. Following on from SMS and MMS, subscribers quickly embraced services such as music and video uploading and downloading, mobile blogging, mobile IM services and gaming. Music and video content will be key growth drivers. Japan and South Korea are the key growth markets for music and video applications, which are forecast to grow 76.1% annually between 2005 and 2010.

While the majority of revenues are generated from services delivered to consumers, there is a core set of business applications which is gaining in popularity. The increasing usage of devices such as the BlackBerry for accessing and interacting with this information suggests that opportunities for business publishers are emerging in both Asia Pacific and Western markets.