James Delahunty
2 Oct 2009 2:28
Chip maker Telegent Systems has commented that fast uptake of free-to-air mobile TV services in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe is bringing life to the ailing mobile TV broadcasting market. Built up as a major new feature just a few short years ago, the feature has secured favor by consumers in Japan and South Korea in particular, accounting for 90 percent of mobile TV viewers.
Telegent Systems announced on Wednesday that it has hit a milestone of 50,000,000 mobile TV chips shipped, which gives it more than half of the market estimated by analysts to be about 80 million-strong. "The availability of handsets that support analog broadcast TV ... has ignited the growth of free-to-air mobile TV globally," Samuel Sheng, new CEO of Telegent, told Reuters.
"We expect to see this (to) continue right across the world, including in developed economies, as free-to-air handsets become available that support the new digital TV standards emerging in those regions." Strategy Analytics expects the mobile TV broadcasting market to total $280 million next year after incorrectly forecasting it to reach $5.4 billion in 2010 just three years ago.