Vodafone mobile TV service tops 100,000 subscribers
Vodafone UK began an early mobile TV service in collaboration with BSkyB back in November 2005. In the 6 months since then, they've registered 100,000 subscribers, who collectively consume 70,000 TV streams a day.
The success of the mobile TV service has taken Vodafone by surprise. "The message there is that customers want mobile TV and they are paying for it," Roger Matthews, head of sports and entertainment for the Vodafone Group, told delegates at the Mobile Entertainment Market conference (MEM2006) in London. "There are more subscribers than we expected and they are paying more than we expected."
Vodafone charges £5 per month for a mobile TV package, which compises a selection of content based around a specific theme (sports, news, factual content and entertainment). Over half of Vodafone's subscribers pay for two packages.
This is excellent news for the mobile phone manufacturers, who are placing massive bets on mobile TV, both in terms of new mobile TV-compliant handsets, and mobile infrastructure that's more able to deal with the high demands mobile TV places on a network. The sceptics who thought mobile TV was a hugely-overhyped white elephant may soon be eating their words.
[Source: Telecoms.com]
