With 437 million mobile phone users and data contributing more than 21% of total mobile service revenue, China is undeniably the world's most promising market for wireless value-added services (WVAS). Ovum forecasts that WVAS will generate over $11.5 billion revenues in China by 2010, a 48% surge from 2006.
The introduction of new media services such as mobile music, games, and mobile TV will further aid the 'very dynamic' and 'robust' growth of wireless value-added services (WVAS) in the years ahead, the firm said.
Ovum said these new media services, primarily assisted by the high consumption of bandwidth, will change the current market scenario (in which messaging, personalization, and alerts services account for majority of the mobile VAS revenues).
However, messaging will continue to dominate the WVAS sector, contributing to over 63% of total VAS revenues in 2010, according to Kevin Lee, an Ovum analyst based in Hong Kong.
SMS, ringback tones, and WAP are the fastest-growing services and will continue to be the predominant services in the next few years. To meet rising user demand, mobile operators are moving towards producing increased service diversity and personalisation to cater for different customer needs.
'The growth of the wireless value-added services market in China will likely be driven by the latest change of VAS policy, availability of converged terminals, strong economic growth, rising customer awareness and demand, and increasing foreign investment,' Lee said.
The launch of 3G and also possible WiMAX deployment may also give a boost, the research firm added.
In the upcoming 3G era, Ovum said multimedia content such as mobile TV and mobile music will become mainstream. Other than these, new applications such as location-based services, mobile blogging, and mobile payment will have an appealing growth potential considering the huge landmass and the high mobility of the Chinese population in the country.
Ovum also said that push email services will also gain traction in the enterprise market as corporations become more technology-savvy.