UK RF specialist Mirics, which is pushing an agenda of driving broadcast TV services through Netbooks and PCs, has just completed a report on multimedia on portable devices ‘ and it reaches the conclusion that the public will not pay extra for such devices, although they might pay a little for any given service.
This is pretty much the unwritten law of mobile TV which Faultline discovered in multiple reports on global mobile TV ‘ either the service or the device must be free in order for Mobile TV to have widespread uptake.
The Mirics report is entitled ‘Mobile Computing & Communications Device Usage’ and was prepared with the help of ABI Research, conducted online in three countries with 500 respondents from the US and 250 each from the UK and Japan.
Yes, users want more multimedia content, but no, for the most part they won’t go out and buy a device which will give it to them. The survey also made it clear that users expected more and more features to be added to a device each generation, for the same price, and respondents didn’t expect to pay for any extra features. We’re not too surprised by that.
The research, which was recently conducted among 1000 adults in the USA, UK and Japan who regularly use a mobile CE device, such as a notebook computer or smart phone, revealed consumer interest in a wide variety of services that all rely on differing wireless communication technologies.
The features most requested on their devices were location-based services, a wi-fi connection and live TV, as well as the ability to easily transfer large files wirelessly and fast. Faster Internet access was the most popular request.
Consumers pretty much like the overall size, weight and screen size of their particular devices but expect more features every year.
Two thirds of those surveyed already have a wi-fi enabled mobile device, and the remainder said they’d like one. More than 50% of the respondents would like to use their mobile device as an ‘electronic wallet’ to pay for retail goods and public transport services. A mobile device with an NFC chip and antenna for touch and go type transactions will clearly be welcomed by consumers.
Over 40% of respondents are accessing more content than a year ago. The most commonly cited reason for this is that their current device has the features that enable easier access to multimedia content. In addition, 43% had accessed live TV or VoD on their mobile device.
What is not a big shock to us is the request for live TV on portable devices, we know that there is consumer pull for such services, but no business model acceptable to suppliers. Those interested in receiving live TV indicated they would be prepared to pay on average $5 to $8 a month for such a service (as story that Nokia has been pushing for years) ‘ as long as they didn’t have to pay extra for a device to view it on as well. Only 16% of all respondents were prepared to pay an extra $25 on the price of a device for this function.
What the survey doesn’t do is get us any closer to a valid business model for mobile TV, although Mirics will no doubt argue that the extra two or three dollars that it costs to put their RF dongle onto a Netbook or PC, would mean it could be bundled into a low end service price, for a couple of dollars a month or just lost in the price of a device.
This is pretty much where mobile TV seems to be going, delivered either as an over the top service or as a free service bundled with an existing device.