If you've pondered getting your Internet porn or playing the lottery through your cell phone, this might interest you: A European business intelligence research firm study says that market could be worth billions in two years.
"A high demand from mobile users for adult content, and simple lottery type gambling services, is almost without doubt," said Juniper Research senior analyst Paul Skeldon, announcing his firm's analysis saying cell porn could reach $791 million – over half of which is likely to come from video content – and cell gambling $5.7 billion in 2006.
Advertising Revenue Service marketing director Jake Ludens thinks most of that action, though, will be centered around Europe for the time being. "I know (the U.S. has) the capability of doing it," he told AVN.com, "but I don't know if they have the phones to support it here now." Ludens thinks the U.S. market for cell phone porn and gambling will grow over the next two or three years, but not quite hitting the level anticipated of Europe.
Skeldon said the major issue now facing mobile porn and gambling is the regulatory climate around the world. "Our assessment is that the services that are given a green light will generate good revenues (in certain regions)," he said, "but these will be limited. Regulated lotteries and betting services will be the big winners."
Skeldon co-authored the report with Juniper senior analyst Tony Crabtree. They said mobile porn and gambling will develop to such heights only if regulators and mobile communications companies "do the right things" and make priorities of safety, security, and child protection, not to mention effective spam blocking.
Skeldon and Crabtree broke down their estimates of cell porn's 2006 potential to $118 million in revenues from text-based content, $253 million from still images, and $420 million from video content. The gambling breakdown, the authors said, divides between an estimated $900 million for online casino gambling, $2.8 billion from lotteries, and $2 million from online betting.
