Mobile search comes of age: opportunities and challenges

The market for mobile content services is growing.

Today most of this content is consumed as downloads on mobile operator controlled portals, although this is changing due to the following reasons:

the growth in off-portal content. Consumers are becoming aware that operators are not the only source of content and they certainly don’t care about the on/off portal distinction. In fact, they will become increasingly intolerant of service providers that operate closed garden portals
associated with the above point is the fact that service providers with access to huge content catalogues are going mobile, such as record labels and broadcasters. They are, or will be, looking at mobile search to optimise discovery; for example, a particular music artist, TV programme or video
index initiatives such as dot.mobi, which encourage mobile optimised sites of better quality and usability. Approximately 545,000 names have now been registered with dot.mobi, although a more modest 10% of sites are live
the combination of 3G networks and improved device capabilities means that mobile browsing is getting faster and easier.
operators recognise these factors and are slowly breaking down their walled garden portals and supporting off-portal activity, particularly in Western Europe. This includes measures such the introduction of flat-rate data tariffs that make browsing and downloading content less expensive.

The net result is that consumers have more mobile content available than ever before, which is great. The problem is that finding content can be difficult and inefficient, which is not so great. This is where mobile search can help by making content and other services easier to find, and in doing so maximising the revenue opportunities that are attached to them.


Report Highlights

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Key messages

The market

The consumer perspective

-Recommendations

Content

-Recommendations

Revenue streams and business models

-Recommendations

Value chain players

-Recommendations

Next steps
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Figure 1 Global connections for key content services
Figure 2 MEF Members: How often do you think consumers currently use mobile search to access mobile entertainment content?
Figure 3 Consumer panel: How often do you surf the mobile Internet using your mobile phone to search for music, ringtones, mobile games or other forms of entertainment?
Figure 4 Characteristics of the online and mobile search environments
Figure 5 Consumer panel: When using the Internet search facility on your mobile, what kind of content or information do you tend to look for?
Figure 6 MEF members: What is the goal of using mobile search in mobile entertainment?
Figure 7 MEF members: What form of advertising do you think has the highest potential to generate revenues in the mobile entertainment context?
Figure 8 MEF members: When do you expect mobile search advertising to contribute significant revenues to your business / the mobile entertainment industry?
Figure 9 MEF members: How do you think revenues from mobile search should/will be divided in the mobile entertainment context?
Figure 10 MEF members: Who do you think mobile network operators should partner with to provide a mobile search experience?
Figure 11 MEF members: What issues do you think are most important for MEF to be investigating as part of this initiative?
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