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TELEPHIA LAUNCHES AUDIENCE MEASUREMENT PANEL FOR MOBILE TV Mobile TV

Subscribers Grow to More Than Two Million in the U.S. with Strong Adoption by Hispanics and African-Americans

SAN FRANCISCO—May 24, 2006
Telephia, the leading provider of performance measurement information to the mobile industry, today announced the launch of the industry’s first mobile television user panel. This longitudinal research panel will provide the mobile industry with detailed measurement of the attitudes and behaviors among the rapidly growing mobile TV audience. Telephia will begin by tracking users of the current unicast-based services (e.g. the MobiTV-based offerings on Sprint and Cingular Wireless, and Verizon’s V CAST service). The panel will expand to include subscribers of multicast mobile TV networks when they launch in late 2006 and 2007. Telephia is currently building its panel in the U.S. and the U.K., and will expand coverage to the rest of Europe and parts of Asia in 2007.

Telephia research shows that more than two million or 1.4 percent of the U.S. wireless user base subscribed to a mobile video plan during the first quarter of 2006. The average U.S. mobile TV subscriber spends $40 a month more on wireless services than non-TV subscribers, according to Telephia.

“Mobile TV represents a huge revenue opportunity for companies in all parts of the communications and entertainment value chain.” said Sid Gorham, President and CEO, Telephia. “To execute successfully on this exciting opportunity, the industry needs detailed research that tracks the evolving behavior and preferences of the mobile TV user. Our clients are particularly interested in using audience measurement data to target advertising and interactive commerce.”

Telephia is uniquely positioned to build the first audience measurement panel for mobile TV. The company has been the leading provider of syndicated research to the mobile industry since 1998, serving operators, device manufacturers, mobile content companies, and wireless retailers in the U.S, Canada and Europe. Telephia runs the mobile industry’s largest consumer survey program, conducting in-depth interviews with over 350,000 mobile subscribers annually across eight countries.

“The scale of Telephia’s monthly consumer survey program allows us to easily recruit mobile TV users to join the panel,” added Gorham. “At 1.4 percent of the U.S. subscriber base, it’s still a relative low incidence group. But because of the large volume of mobile users we survey, Telephia has the breadth and depth to develop such a panel.”

Hispanics and African-Americans Skew High Mobile TV Usage Telephia shows that the Hispanic and Black/African-American demographic groups made up 23 and 19 percent of the mobile TV subscriber base in the U.S. during Q1 2006, respectively (see Table 1). This is approximately double the share these groups represent of the broader mobile user population.

“The early popularity of mobile TV with these groups continues the demographic trend we see in the adoption of all advanced mobile data services” said Gorham. “Mobile TV will allow marketers to reach this audience with a wide range of innovative advertising and commerce approaches.”

Table 1: Demographics of Mobile TV Subscribers, Wireless and Non-Subscribers (U.S.)
Demographic Group
Mobile TV Subscribers
Wireless Subscribers
Non-Subscribers
White
47%
72% 76%
Hispanic
23%
10% 8%
Black/African-American
19%
11% 8%
Asian or Pacific Islander
7%
2% 2%
Source: Telephia, Q1 2006

Want to know how to market to the dynamic and diverse mobile community? Join Telephia at the Mobile Marketing FORUM in NYC on June 7th, 2006. Tamara Gaffney, Telephia Director of Product Management, will moderate a session called: Mobile Marketing in a Diverse World. For more information, visit www.mobilemarketingforum.com

For further information on Telephia’s mobile TV research or any Telephia products, please contact Jerry Rocha, Director of Mobile Content at 415-513-5894 or jrocha@telephia.com.

About Telephia
Founded in 1998, Telephia provides syndicated performance measurement information to the leaders of the converging communications and content industries, including carriers, device manufacturers, content and application providers, retailers, infrastructure vendors and investment analysts. Telephia is the industry standard measure of subscriber share, customer satisfaction, device share, network quality, revenue share, advertising effectiveness, content audience and many other key performance indicators. For further information, please visit our website at www.telephia.com or call 415-395-0500.

Press Contact: Maria Bumatay
e: mbumatay@telephia.com
p: 415.637.4904
 
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