Juniper Research predicts that mobile content revenues will increase by more than 15 percent this year as more consumers adopt smartphones and increasingly become part of the mobile app craze.

Mobile entertainment content revenues will jump from $33.2 billion in 2010 to 38.4 billion by year-end. Juniper’s “Mobile Entertainment Strategies: Markets, Opportunities & Forecasts 2011-2015” report also discusses some of the opportunities for mobile gambling.

“I would argue that the scale of the revenue growth last year demonstrates both the appeal of mobile entertainment services in general and the success of the app store model – in combination with consumer oriented smartphones – in driving both service usage and service adoption,” said Windsor Holden, principal analyst at Juniper, Hampshire, Britain.

“In terms of revenues, mobile music services still account for the largest share – although the effective collapse of the ringtone market has largely offset the gains made in, for example, streamed music services,” he said.

“In other segments, we’ve also seen strong global growth in areas such as games and social media, together with more niche areas such as mobile gambling.”

App Store model
Smaller content developers are benefiting from app store content delivery methods. App store content delivery increases the opportunity for visibility, according to Juniper Research.

A great example is developers such as Rovio, which created Angry Birds. Angry Birds has achieved more than 10 million paid downloads due to the app store content delivery model.

Lima Sky, creator of Doodle Jump, has also seen 10 million paid downloads from delivering its content within the app stores.

Larger digital content publishers such as large media brands have also benefited from the greater levels of consumer awareness and usage.

According to Juniper’s research, the mobile gambling segment has seen a surge in activity on the mobile Web and in apps. This is especially true in Europe, where there has been recent deregulation in remote gambling laws.

Juniper also points out that some United States state lottery providers are considering mobile lottery services.

Brands using mobile content
Revenues from traditional mobile content such as ringtones and wallpapers have declined over the past couple of years.

However, mobile games, streamed music and social media has driven strong overall growth in mobile content.

As major retailers, brands and media organizations increasingly use mobile content to drive awareness of and engagement with their products, this growth  will continue, Juniper predicts.

“It’s probably fair to say that 2010 was the year in which mobile advertising really took off – brands are migrating a far greater share of budget to digital, and at the same time a far greater share of digital budget to mobile,” Mr. Holden said.

“This has in large part been brought about by the immense publicity in apps and content engendered initially by Apple, and latterly by other OTT providers: We’ve seen a considerable number of brands using apps as marketing tools,” he said.

“Mobile’s key advantage over many other distribution channels was the greater level of engagement it afforded. Interestingly, however, we’re now seeing, for example – media companies using the mobile device as a means of promoting awareness of films or new TV shows, be it through advertising on social networks accessed via mobile, through apps, or through SMS.”