Southeast Asian mobile users are thirsting for mobile video, but only a handful of services in Southeast Asia are hitting the mark, according to a report from Vidiator.
The readiness of the Southeast Asian market for mobile video is evident, with 75% of users in Malaysia and 88% in India having already or would consider paying for mobile video.
Vidiator’s report identified four key areas where the right decisions must be madefor the roll out of mobile video services to succeed—managing the picture quality, balancing live streaming versus on-demand content, developing the right apps for the right devices and developing the right price plans.
“Southeast Asia offers a clear and sizeable market for operators and content providers alike, yet many of the mobile video services on the market at present are failing to create the necessary consumer appeal,” said Vidiator CEO Tae Sung Park.
“Our report has identified the four key areas that need to be addressed for a service to be successful,” Park said. “There’s no ‘one size fits all’ solution that will work though, we’ve found that while many of the current services have looked at each of the four areas, they may not have made the right decisions in each one.”
Park stressed the importance of working with a trusted partner who can build a reliable service, with the right mix of content, on the right devices and at the right price.
“This approach can help realize a market with the potential to be worth $22.5 billion by 2016," he said.
Mobile video is globally expected to be one of the biggest growth markets within mobile content, with video traffic now accounting for over 50% of total data and expected to increase 25-fold between 2011 and 2016.
At the same time, in Southeast Asia, penetration of traditional TV services is lower than the global average, according to a report commissioned by the World Economic Forum.
Mobile video will allow content providers to cater for a seemingly infinite desire for content of all types from news to entertainment amongst audiences who have traditionally had limited access to the content that those in western markets take for granted.