In-Stat: Mobile TV in China Ready to Take Off

A new report from In-Stat predicts that "Mobile TV subscribers in China will grow to 94 million by 2009 with 2007 being the year that the services gather significant momentum."

Anty Zheng at In-Stat said, "Telecom operators in China have developed a clear business model for streaming mobile video services over a 2.5G or 3G network. But unclear regulations need to be straightened out so responsibilities and value chain positioning can be settled; otherwise, market development will be inhibited."

Key findings include:

• The Chinese government is pushing for widespread Mobile TV availability for the 2008 Olympics.
• In-Stat believes that DVB-H is likely to be widely adopted, and that SDMB, TDMB and MediaFLO each have different market opportunities as well.
• Attractive applications like MTV and weather (“Snack TV”) can be shown within 15 minutes to help users kill time while waiting for transportation.