Motorola seems more and more interested in devices which can view mobile TV, but which are not necessarily mobile handsets, and has acquired an interest in Italy’s Quantum, which is the leading supplier of mobile TV media players in Italy on the 3 Italia network. Motorola gave out no details of just how much it invested through its Motorola Ventures VC arm, or on what terms.
“As the Mobile TV market continues to grow significantly, Motorola is
committed to supporting innovative companies, such as Quantum, that strive
to seamlessly deliver multimedia digital content to consumers on the go,”
said John O’Donohue, managing director, Motorola Ventures. “Motorola will leverage its relationship with Quantum to enable Pay TV Broadcasters and Mobile Network Operators to offer their subscribers compelling services
leveraging the convergence of Mobile TV.”
Back in January Motorola launched its own DVB-H device, the DH01, which offers mobile TV which is NOT on a handset. We noted at the time that this is a market that has been largely ignored by all but a handful of tiny consumer electronics companies. The Motorola device comes with a 4.3 inch QVGA screen supporting 16 million colors, four hours of playback and a five-minute flash memory buffer to allow pause TV, like a mini DVR and plays video at up to 25 frames a second.
The main reason for this we feel is that almost nowhere has a mobile TV service been launched where at least ones of the local dominant cellcos took it to market. Where a cellco is involved there is a possibility that they will veto any non-handset customers, as Verizon appears to have done with MediaFLO, in the US.
But most DVB-H consortia have at least one member that is a broadcaster and as such wants to see as many people as possible watching mobile TV, regardless of whether or not they are an existing cellco customer.
Our own forecast for DVB-H mobile TV is that out of 295 million specialist mobile TV handsets that will ship by 2012, around 42% of them will be either DVB-H or DVB-SH, which makes it the single largest Mobile TV handset technology market, with ISDB-T a likely second. However Mobile TV receivers that are NOT handsets, will be a smaller market than that and will only really takeoff in markets where a free to air Mobile TV service is offered.
“We are honored to be associated with a forward-looking organization
and leader in the mobility world such as Motorola,” said Stefano Martini,
chief executive officer, Quantum SPA. “Motorola’s investment will allow
Quantum to expand and accelerate the development of our product lines and
create the conditions for a successful rollout of mobile TV worldwide.”
Quantum is the equipment supplier that understands this niche the best of any company, and if Motorola plans to be a leader in this market it will need to get closer still to Quantum, so don’t be too surprised if at some stage in the future Motorola makes a play for Quantum, especially if it continues to be successful.