Mobile adult subscription revenues to reach almost $1 billion by 2015 driven by tablet and smartphone use
Revenues from mobile adult subscriptions will reach nearly $1 billion by 2015. This growth will be fuelled by rises in the smartphone and tablet user bases alongside an increase in the average spend per user despite increasing competition from free content, according to new research.
A dramatic rise in the tablet user base will also drive the increase in subscription revenues, according to Juniper Research, which said this will be particularly fuelled as the majority of tablets will be in the very regions which have historically spent the most on adult subscriptions.
While revenues will grow significantly, the report also found that in emerging markets growth will be restricted by low smartphone take up and a lack of viable payment methods, such as credit card usage. In many cases, legal and social barriers will also inhibit the growth of mobile adult subscription revenues in these markets.
Report author Charlotte Miller said: 'Mobile adult subscriptions will be a growing source of mobile adult revenues. Niche content has always been a driver of paid adult content and this is no less true on mobile. While there has been a proliferation of free content, it remains that case that for specialised content, users must continue to pay.'
According to data from the first quarter of 2012 among tablet and smartphone users aged 18 and older in the Arbitron Mobile Trends Panels services in the US and in Europe, users spent an average of 62 minutes per day interacting with tablets, and 68 minutes with smartphones.
Arbitron found that tablet users had longer and less frequent sessions than those of smartphone users. Smartphone users had a higher number of sessions of relatively shorter duration than those of tablet users. With tablets, users spent an average 25 minutes per day with communications and core device functions (email, calendar, VoIP, instant messaging, etc.) versus an average of 35 minutes per day with smartphones.
In online and apps usage, tablets surpassed smartphones with an average of 37 minutes per day versus an average of 33 minutes per day for smartphones, Arbitron's research showed.
Comparing native apps to browser-based services, smartphone users spent about seven times more time with apps than with their browsers; tablet users spent four times as much time with apps than with their browsers.
Other key findings from the Juniper report included: North America and Western Europe with account for over 70% of total end user mobile adult revenues; Adult video chat users to more than triple by 2015 accounting for over half of mobile adult content revenues by 2015.
