Study shows consumers giving up on mobile TV

February 12, 2016

New research made available at the Mobile World Congress 2016 in Barcelona highlights that growth in users giving up on mobile TV services is outpacing growth in new users.

The study also shows there is a sizeable revenue opportunity if operators are able to overcome the quality issues currently associated with mobile TV

A survey commissioned by Tellabs and conducted by M:Metrics indicates that the mobile TV market in Europe and North America showed 36% growth in new users between January and November 2015. It also revealed that former mobile TV users grew by 68% during the same period.

The research included customers from all the mobile operators offering TV services in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and the US.

Users surveyed identified price as the main barrier to mobile TV usage, followed by quality and reliability issues.

If the quality issues could be resolved, according to M:Metrics’ calculations, a revenue opportunity of $270m could be created. The figures are derived in part from the fact that 60% of ex-mobile TV users said they would be willing to pay to watch mobile TV again provided service quality and reliability improved significantly in the coming year.

Pat Dolan, vice president for EMEA at Tellabs, said that decreases in the amount of available bandwidth will impact the user experience, affecting load time, picture quality, sound, and the service dropping altogether.

In the opinion of Pat Dolan, “Operators are now starting to realise they have bottlenecks in their networks. They are seeing the need for an efficient and flexible bandwidth delivery mechanism.”

As an equipment vendor, Tellabs’ focus is on the network side, but there are other elements to a successful mobile TV service.

“There will be some serious dollars spent on the marketing,” said Dolan. Content is also vital: “getting that right as well is key,” he added.

In Germany, for example, choice was identified as the second most important concern, both in terms of the channels on offer, and the different options and packages available.

Dolan thinks that price is certainly an issue. He predicts that prices will come down as there are more competitive offerings on the market. Then it will come down to quality.

The Mobile World Congress 2016 is being held in Barcelona between 11-14 February.