Annual revenues from mobile entertainment services will reach almost $75 billion by 2017, up from an estimated $39 billion this year. According to Juniper Research, the emergence of more sophisticated monetization strategies, allied to a nascent ecosystem of app-centric mobile devices such as smart watches will drive this growth.
The report says that games will continue to generate the largest share of revenue throughout the forecast period with freemium titles making most of the cash.
Another interesting segment represent Leisure & eReader apps, covering a multitude of app categories such as News, Navigation and Shopping, with wearable technologies helping this sector grow.
Juniper expects to see a “spike” in mobile entertainment revenues during the Christmas 2013 period, as consumers browse and download apps for their new devices.
Unsurprisingly, the Far East & China will account for the largest share of mobile entertainment revenues throughout the forecast period, while app discovery will remain a key challenge for app developers and publishers…