A new Juniper Research report titled “Mobile User-Generated Content: Social Networking, Dating and Personal Content Delivery” has found that new revenue streams from event-based charging and advertising will help to push the value of the mobile dating and chatroom market to nearly $1.4 billion by 2013. This comes as a result of a burgeoning user-generated content (UGC) market that will reach $7.3 billion by the same time.
The report says that while subscription revenues will continue to contribute the bulk of service revenues over the next five years, an increasing number of dating companies have now switched to offering event-based charging, through products which offer free registration but levy charges when end-users wish to contact one another, or else offer virtual gifts for subscribers to send to other users.
The Juniper report also observed that mobile operators have become increasingly keen to offer services on-portal as part of their entertainment portfolios: Vodafone offers Dating Direct, while 3 UK has partnered with Flirtomatic.
Other findings from the report include:
- Less than 30% of mobile dating customers will be on flat-rate subscriptions by 2011.
- The Far East and China region is currently the largest region in terms of subscriber numbers, primarily due to the success of dating services in Japan.
- Advertising will provide the majority of mobile social networking revenues but less than one-third of all UGC revenues by 2013.
More information about Juniper’s report is available from their website.