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Viewing report
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Mobile Consumer Electronics - The Nomadic Era
IDATE, Jan 2006, Pages: 175
This market report provides an analysis of the emerging trends in the world of mobile Consumer Electronics (CE), now having to contend with increasing competition from the telecom and computing industries.
- Mobile CE is a market that appears ready to be shaped by new consumption modes, including mobile TV and portable digital players, as new ways of accessing content emerge.
- The devices themselves, from simple mobile handsets to portable video players, are the first to undergo a swift and radical evolution of the features they offer, embodying a wide array of possibilities for consuming nomadic content: music and video downloads, live TV programme viewing, etc.
- The market's value chain and business models will be greatly affected by the availability of content, of which music is currently the most advanced segment.
- Thanks to their economic power, mobile telephony players appear to be in a solid position for enjoying a lasting influence on nomadic services, albeit without the absolute certainty of being able to corner the bulk of market value.
A nascent market
In a matter of only a few years, mobile Consumer Electronics (CE) has become a vast terrain of experimentation, thanks in particular to the digitisation of content and to the technological advancements that now allow users to wander about with a massive music collection in their pockets, stored in an MP3 player weighing only a few grams.
The progress that has been made in the close to 25 years since the introduction of the Sony Walkman is stunning. Mobile CE now involves most content, and most areas of entertainment, business and communication. This content can be accessed using a host of devices: portable video players, MP3 players, handheld gaming consoles, PDAs, smartphones and mobile handsets.
- The onset of this development was the transition to digital content. Initially viewed as a measure of quality, digital technology soon became a way to store and distribute content using a computer and the web. Music files exchanged over online peer-to-peer networks shook up the recording industry, whose sales have been plummeting, to ultimately give birth to online music stores, like iTunes, and to trends like offering advance release singles to a mobile operator's subscribers. With the potential of being fully digital, content distribution is undergoing a radical transformation.
- At the same time, progress made in data storage technologies, and with all components, fuelled in large part by the mobile telephony industry, now makes it possible to design multi-functional miniaturised personal products (offering communication, photos, music, video, e-mail). A simple cellphone can now act as a veritable multimedia jukebox, both for playing content and producing it.
- This combination of digital and mobility introduced the notion of personalisation, which opens onto an infinite number of possibilities for consumers, promising permanent access to the content they want, whenever, and wherever they are. This is a powerful promise that mobile CE players are now able to keep.
- Nevertheless, mobile CE is not yet a homogeneous and structured market, guaranteeing all of its players a steady income. It is more of a vast bundle of market segments, populated by players all obeying the rules of different economic systems, many of which are old and now being severely undermined: computer manufacturers, cellular operators, copyright holders, TV channels, handset manufacturers…
A fledgling but diverse market
- The combination of digitisation, technological advancements in data storage and the ability to personalise how content is consumed have all helped fuel the development of nomad CE
- The nomad CE market creates competition between players from different industries, all implementing distinct business models
Content availability: a central challenge
- Online music, mobile TV and VoD beginning to drive the market
- Personal content too is a key growth area for nomad CE
- Still uncertain distribution (broadcasting, streaming, downloading) and billing modes
- In the long run, fixed-mobile convergence may undermine the existence of a dedicated mobile content market
The mobile devices of tomorrow
- Ubiquitous devices, web-enabled and personal
- Multi-function service access kiosks
- Standardised and interoperable portable audio & video libraries
Stakes and challenges for the industry
- New model emerging: 'portable device/service' combination
- Portability increases time spent consuming content and its personalisation
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