Huawei has released a new report on mobile video at the European Video Forum. Entitled, ‘Mobile Video Report – Business Models Innovation Drives Mobile Video Monetisation’, it advises European operators to cash in on mobile video.
European operators rate highly across three key dimensions for mobile video – technical, economic and for content available, and it is now time to seize the growing opportunities provided by mobile video. We are now entering into a new golden age for the telecommunications industry led by video services, says the company.
“Voice services were the first services in the telecommunications industry with revenues of hundreds of billion dollars. In 2015, the revenue of global traffic exceeded that of voice services, marking an important milestone. For some carriers such as LG Uplus, video service has contributed over 20% of the total revenue,” said Ken Wang, president of Global Marketing and Solutions Sales for Huawei’s Carrier Business Group, in his opening speech at the forum.
“Intelligent devices with cameras are now more common, more social platform videos are being created and spread in an easier way, and virtual reality and augmented reality technologies are developing on a large scale. A new golden age for the telecommunications industry led by video services has come,” continued Ken Wang.
At the forum, Qiu Heng, president of Huawei Wireless Network Marketing Operation, announced the release of the mobile video report during his speech. Mr Qiu pointed out that video is the driving force for the explosive increase of network traffic. He elaborated that the three operation modes of mobile video included traffic operation, platform operation and ecosystem operation.
European operators are ready for mobile video growth and Huawei always assists operators in achieving commercial success and provides solutions that address customers’ whole business processes.
Mobile networks are ready
Huawei’s mobile video report, which looks into market maturity and drivers for mobile video growth (created in collaboration with Strategy Analytics, Huawei mLAB (Mobile Broadband Lab), and other third parties) found that Western Europe rates highly across the three key dimensions – technical, economic and content available – required to tap into mobile video growth. It indicates that:
- Western Europe scores well across key technology dimensions including high smartphone penetration, LTE coverage, and Wi-Fi penetration, which are essential enablers for mobile video growth.
- Western Europe also leads in the economic dimension by offering affordable mobile data packages.
Untapped opportunity
However when it comes to facilitating the fast growth of mobile video consumption and innovative monetisation models, European mobile operators lag behind those in North America and advanced Asia Pacific countries. The reasons for this:
- This may be partly due to different market characteristics, such as an aging population less inclined to fully embrace mobile video when compared with a younger generation in Asia Pacific.
- Operators in Europe are hampered by consumers’ concerns over data consumption and average cost.
“Western European mobile operators should strive to reclaim leadership in innovation and differentiation, and provide consumer centric and video centric approaches to address the growth opportunity of the mobile video market,” said Nitesh Patel, director of Wireless Media Strategies, Strategy Analytics, during the European Mobile Video Forum.
Time for change
It is clear that European operators should update their strategies and business models to unleash the potential of the mobile video market. The report provides European operators with examples of successful promotion of mobile video from selected operators in different parts of the world. These case studies cover different modes of engagement by operators, ranging from sponsored data to launching their own OTT services, from partnerships with media companies to operating video portals.
“Operators like LG Uplus in Korea, T-Mobile in the USA and Verizon have demonstrated a strong ambition to monetise video content, by introducing innovative pricing approaches, including zero-rating video traffic, enabling sponsored data, offering video-centric tariffs and by launching their own branded mobile video apps and services to tap new sources of revenue,” said Qiu Heng during his speech on ‘Big Time for Mobile Video’ at the forum.
“We see some leading European mobile operators already exploring the use of video services and they are seeing increasing revenue from it. We would like to see more European mobile operators consider similar approaches to maximise growing demand for mobile video.”
The European Mobile Video Forum was held on 12th September 2016 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. More than 200 speakers and attendees from operators, OTTs, content producers and analysts in Europe and around the world joined the forum and discussed the opportunities, video business models and challenges brought about by the video industry.
To download the mobile video report go to: http://www.huawei.com/en/industry-insights/huawei-voices
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