The World Cup in Germany this month will provide the catalyst for TV services on cell phones, but real growth will occur over the next five years, an industry report said today.

Photo: World Cup to Jump Start Mobile TV Photo 1

A number of broadcast services have launched in Europe, led by 3 in Italy, and Debitel in Germany, across DVB-H and T-DMB networks respectively, which it is hoped will ignite a raft of further launches and subscriber uptake.

Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts mobile TV and video contributing $1.2 billion to total global mobile entertainment revenues this year, with $300 million mobile TV and video revenues generated from the World Cup alone.

"There is no better place on earth at present for the mobile industry to showcase its progress and continued development than this summer when the world will turn its attention to the World Cup," says Nick Lane, Principal Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media. "With 3G handsets penetrating the mass market, and operators and content providers alike jumping on the football bandwagon, we forecast Mobile TV to generate $300 million in revenue in the build-up and duration of the World Cup."

"For such an early market, this is significant as mobile TV has the opportunity to capture the imagination of the mobile consumer and become the platform to drive consumers to other forms of mobile entertainment."

The major hopes for mobile TV are pinned on these key sporting events, such as the soccer finals and the Olympics. With a host of worldwide trials and tests undertaken through 2005 and into 2006 across a number of broadcast platforms, the industry looks set for extensive development in 2006 buoyed by the pull of the World Cup.

Informa predicts Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld or DVB-H, backed by Nokia to be the dominant mobile TV technology, followed by Qualcomm's MediaFLO technology.