Datamonitor has predicted that the number of people viewing mobile TV globally will hit 155.6 million by the end of 2012, up from 4.4 million today. “Mobile TV’s global subscriber base will swell to 65.6 million in 2010 and then more than double to 155.6 million by the end of 2012, a year-on-year growth rate of 66.2 per cent”, writes Silicon.com. That’s some pretty significant growth, and analyst Chris Khouri is quoted as saying that the European mobile TV landscape is set for “strong growth” between 2009 and 2012 owing to the analogue to digital switch-over freeing up spectrum. Datamonitor thinks Europe will have 42.7 million mobile TV viewers by 2012 (effectively doubling the market every year), Asia Pacific will have 76.3 million subscribers while North America will have 35.6 million subscribers. It seems this is a best-case scenario based on the telcos giving the service a strong marketing push. Datamonitor predicts that users in Western Europe and North America will pay between $8-12 a month for the service.

In 2006 the mobile TV market was worth about $1.3 billion and half of that came from the 25-34 year old age group. However, Datamonitor “found a significant number of occasional consumers of mobile content - such as music and video clips - exist…If these sporadic users can be encouraged to put their hands in their pockets regularly, said the analyst, then the potential is for mobile content revenues to increase by 150 per cent over a three-month period.”

BroadcastBuyer notes that a lot of the growth will come at the end of the period: “This subscriber base will grow to 65.6 million in 2010 and more than double to an estimated 155.6 million by 2012”. Datamonitor also expects a transition to an advertising-based revenue model once there are sufficient users.