Mobile TV chip maker Siano Mobile Silicon has announced that all top three of Brazil’s mobile carriers – Vivo, Claro and TIM Brazil – are now promoting products using its MDTV receivers. In partnership with Chinese Telco giant, ZTE, Siano are powering mobile phones and 3G modem cards equipped with digital TV for mobile subscribers in Brazil. The Siano-powered terminals enable viewing of dozens of channels comprised of Sports, News and Entertainment – an experience that will culminate with the FIFA World Cup in 2010.
“We want Brazilians to fully experience the World Cup and be able to watch the games anywhere and anytime,” Hugo Janeba, Executive VP of Marketing and Innovation in Vivo, the largest mobile operator in Brazil, said publically last week, adding “and when soccer fans have their own pocket TV, the experience certainly becomes much more complete.”
The new terminals were designed by ZTE and are based on Siano’s receiver chip, which supports the Brazilian ISDB-T DTV format. The 3G data-cards are compatible with all standard notebooks, netbooks, and desktop PCs.
Brazil is leading the roll-out of mobile digital TV services in South America, with MDTV services having recently debuted also in Argentina and Chile. Other countries very likely to join include Uruguay, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia and Paraguay – who are expected to launch ISDB-T services within the next fifteen months – overall generating one of the largest unified Mobile DTV markets worldwide, totaling more than 300 Million potential viewers!
“As one of the largest cellular terminal makers worldwide, ZTE is proud to lead the mobile TV market in Brazil,” said Zhang Yadong, Manager of Mobile Broadband Device Production at ZTE. “Siano has been our major partner for mobile TV terminals, due to their excellent products and support”.?
You can’t argue with the numbers, right? Despite Broadcast Mobile TV slowly tailing off to zero globally, Brazil seems to be scaling up in a big way – and if people are going to have a convenient way to watch Football, you know the product that provides that is going to be popular