COVID-19 will boost worldwide revenue on content consumed on mobile phones by 28% in 2020 according to Strategy Analytics report “Global Mobile Media Forecast: 2015-2025.”
Stay-at-home guidance issued by governments as result of the COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated an increase in spending within mobile games and mobile apps, as consumers have been forced to shift their behavior from offline activities to online. Over the next five years Strategy Analytics forecasts overall mobile media revenue from consumers and advertisers to approach US$860 billion as the population of mobile broadband enabled smartphone owners continues to rise, 5G penetration increases, and consumers continue to look to personal devices to access information, news and social networks, play games, watch video content, and listen to music.
The research group adds that consumer demand for accessing popular internet services and apps on mobile phones, including Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, mobile games, and more, continues to rise, supported by the growing penetration of smartphones and improving data connectivity via LTE and emerging 5G networks. With consumers advised to stay indoors during the pandemic Strategy Analytics has seen evidence of uplift in spending within apps.
“There is evidence from companies in the mobile media sector that consumer spend has increased significantly during the first half of 2020, which coincides with the COVID-19 pandemic,” Nitesh Patel, director, Wireless Media, Strategy Analytics notes. “ A number of companies which we track, including Tencent, Zynga, Glu and Colopl have also reported a notable year-on-year rise in consumer revenue from their mobile games businesses as mobile users shift their spending towards digital services.”
Strategy Analytics expects 5G to have a positive impact on data traffic and data revenue for operators as consumption rises, also will also underpin continued rise in consumer and advertiser expenditure on mobile content.
David Kerr, VP, Strategy Analytics adds:“With 5G deployments accelerating we expect 5G to deliver continued positive growth to mobile media revenue rather than facilitate a significant step change. The increased capacity, greater bandwidth and lower latency benefits of 5G will enable digital media companies to deliver evolved rich media experiences, like 360 video, HD video, VR, AR and cloud gaming at greater scale over mobile networks to smartphones. However, consumer demand for these emerging content formats on smartphones is currently niche and going forward its essential for content creators, publishers and distributors to understand, rather than assume, which specific market segments are willing to use and pay a premium for immersive mobile experiences.”
(Dennis Sellers has been covering the Apple industry since 1996. In addition to“Apple World Today,” he also runs his own freelance writing/editing service. If you want more info about the latter, email him at dennis.sellers@comcast.net.)
