“All the prerequisites for the mobile phone to move beyond voice services on a large scale are finally in place, and the users are ready”, said Sabine Ehlers, associate analyst, Berg Insight.
“The challenge now facing providers of mobile entertainment services is to adapt their products to the mobile medium.” She adds that the mobile phone is not a terminal which encourages aimless browsing and exploring. Therefore the first challenge facing content producers is to ensure that their products are easy to find and sold through channels which the consumers feel confident using, traditionally operator portals or branded stores.
A key issue still to be resolved is however to find appropriate business models for mobile entertainment. Berg Insight recommends content providers to explore new price models, such as pay-per-session and subscriptions, to create more dependable revenue streams.
To begin with operators are advised to offer differently sized subscriptions of minutes or bytes, and then increasingly bundle these with services such as TV and music, as a way to retain customers and to maintain revenue per subscriber.
To reach the majority of users who are not yet willing to pay for mobile services, Berg Insight also recommends exploring applications as vehicles for advertising, as well as contents sold bundled with other digital goods or even physical products.