TV on your mobile: Very promising by Korean statistics

The CEO of the world's second-largest media company, Publicis, say "In a couple of years, most of the information you share, most of the advertising you read, most of the messages you send and most of the music you listen to, will transit through your cell phone."  This is in line with numerous similar quotes from all sides of the media industries from music to advertising  etc as Alan and I have tracked here at this blogsite.

But what of watching TV on the mobile phone? We've had pocket TV's since the early 1980s and they are not particularly popular. I have news for you. The latest numbers from South Korea are reported in today's Financial Times (June 1, 2006) tell of quite dramatic details. In less than a year, 550,000 Koreans have bought new Mobile-TV handsets on the Tu Media service - with the advanced smartphones with built-in digital set-top boxes and high-resolution TV viewing screens and also signed up to the service that costs about 7 dollars per month in addition to your regular phone bill.

Note this is not the clumsy grainy and jittery service we have on various 3G networks. This is full broadcast onto the handset. Just like broadcast TV, this is a sharp jitter-free image and sound for TV.

So lets understand those numbers. South Korea has a population of a little under 50 million. And about 80% (39 million) of the population have mobile phones. So in very rough terms this could be a country equivalent to say a Spain, France or Poland - but of course South Korean living standards are not as high as Europe. Korea is also the world's highest penetration broadband internet country, and the world's leading 3G mobile telecoms country.

The 550,000 in one year is also a remarkable statistic in terms of new technology adoption. For contrast, Apple's iPods reached the 1 million units sold mark by July 2003, one year and nine months after launch. And obviously in a country 8 times larger than South Korea and much wealthier. In the UK (60 million population) and Italy (55 million) with the launch of 3G by Hutchison, in their first year from launch, they had reached 385,000 (UK) and 475,000 (Italy) subscribers to their 3G service.

Yet in a country less wealth and smaller, in only six months, Tu Media has managed 550,000 paying subscribers buying the most expensive handsets in their market. Note that in Korea there are no handset subsidies, so the buyers pay full price for these advanced phones.

Well, if 550,000 subscribers is about 1.4% of the total mobile phone subscriber base, how would that reflect to European countries? In Germany they are just about to launch DMB standard broadcast TV to mobiles, while Italy has already launched the rival DVB-H standard broadcast TV to mobiles. If we assume Germany achieves Korean level of adoption, then it means one MILLION paying subscribers to broadcast mobile TV in six months. And in Italy where the phone penetration is much higher than Germany, if 1.4% convert to mobile TV, it would mean another million TV viewers there by the end of the year.

I don't mean these as my forecast, as I don't think for very many reasons this is likely (starting with the established phone makers popular in Europe, who have to release compatible equipment). But don't dismiss this opportunity. As the various DVB-H studies in Berlin, Helsinki, Oxford etc have shown, people get very quickly addicted to TV on their mobile phones. They take them to bed, use them as alternate TV screens when the main family watches the main TV, etc. TV and mobile? It will be big.

Comments

[Lee Dryburgh]

I can not see for the life of me, why mobile TV would be big? If your watching TV then your not mobile and it requires all of your attention which you normally require even at a minimum whilst moving in the physical world?

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Lee

Good question. That is what puzzled me too. Originally I was of the mind that TV consumption will not migrate to the pocketable screens, as we've had pocket TVs for 30 years and nobody walks around with one of those 24/7.

But now looking at the usage in South Korea among the 2.1 million users, very strong patterns emerge. The digital broadcast TV to the mobile phone is the personal (digital) TV. So if your family main TV, the big wonderful plasma screen - is hogged by the father watching his football game, or the mom with her soap opera, the teenager can watch his Jackass on the personal digital receiver.

And the usage is very strong in surprising places. At work. The small screen fits comfortably at the desk, next to your laptop/PC screen. Many companies have strict policies (and firewalls) preventing consumption of TV during the day. But if you pay for it yourself, whether you want to listen to music quietly (radio, CD player, iPod) or watch TV eg music video or even a 24 hour news show or whatever, "background noise" - this is how young people behave. They instinctively multitask. And their bosses are quite happy to let them have their little TV sets, if this keeps them productive..

And yet another place - seriously - is the bathroom. You can't take your TiVo box into your bathroom, but now going to the toilet does not mean missing out on the live action from TV. Just take your digital tuner on your phone with you. Yes, a very big time is spent using the mobile-TV in while in the WC.

Of course toss in the waiting times related to commuting - or if you're in your car - then the digital broadcast receivers obviously built into the car itself (also very big in the current line of new cars in South Korea). Remember this is digital TV so the picture is pretty much crystal clear in whatever formats so its not the fuzzy pictures some have tried to view in analogue TV in a moving car...

There is more. But these are parts of the early findings. Thanks for the question. We'll monitor this and report on it as it evolves

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[swati atrey]

i m an final yr student of electronics engg can u send me some info abt dvb in india also why the reception is clear in dvb in moving car rather than analog tv

[David Cushman]

Tomi, here's some recent stats on size of mobile TV in Asia-Pacific http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/Nov2006/3899.htm
Looks like 0-5.2million in 18-24 months?
And predicted to hit 25million by 2008, 72m by 2010.

[Anonymous]

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[vijay]

the article is useful

soth korean living standard i se qual to lesser economies of schengen states.such as greece and portugal,spain etc.

[Don]

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[sanjaytadvi]

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