MobiTV has been bragging about success in getting new subscribers this week, based on a press release sent out yesterday. According to their press release, the company has grown its customer numbers to 2 million subscribers internationally, up from 1 million less than a year ago.
The quick turnaround in growth for the company was driven significantly by new content, which is no surprise, as well as $100 million in new investments and a drive into new international markets.
That press release highlights a deal with AT&T "to deliver real live TV to any PC broadband user in the US," a deal with Sprint-Nextel Cable JFV for "cable-to-mobile deployments," a "pan-Latin alliance," etc.
Julie Ask at Jupiter Research writes that "most impressive is the time difference between how little time it took to get the second million."
The closely named Juniper Research released a study back in December, liked above, that predicted that mobile media would be gaining major ground over the next five years. I wrote about this on Dec. 09, looking in particular at predictions that sports content and pornography would be among the services driving people to use mobile devices, a prediction that counters any idea that mobile is not a good space for visual material, since there's little out there more visual than sports and porn.
Ben Macklin, in his response to the Juniper story,writes, "The mobile phone has quickly moved beyond being just a convenient communication device. For many people, carrying a mobile phone means being connected to a wider community, and the device has become the very linchpin of one's social life. The entanglement of humans and electronic devices will only become deeper in the years ahead, and the mobile phone will be at the forefront of that process."
Is this another small indication that the Juniper prediction is correct? Hard to say so just based on one example, but business models based around mobile content indicate that the space is becoming increasingly profitable and the infrastructure able to handle video more effectively. Will we reach the 5-year point predicted by Juniper? Hard to say. But MobiTV's success is another indicator that mobile content is becoming more entrenched in media consumption behaviors.
A skeptic might say...
Or, MobiTV could be fudging their numbers to get additional investment?
Any particular reason for your skepticism as related to MobiTV, or just cynical in general? (Not trying to be facetious, but I hadn't seen any reports so far that indicate we SHOULD be suspicious of the numbers.)