Player X expands mobile TV offering

WHILE RUMOURS abound that rivals, such as Mobitv, are pulling out of the UK market, Player X claims to have signed two more UK operators to its Geektv offering.

The company won't say which operators have signed up. But considering it has already announced 3 and O2, and Vodafone doesn't seem too keen to play in this space - that leaves T-Mobile and Orange.

Player X claims that unlike other streamed terrestrial TV channels, subscribers to Geektv can use the EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) to start and pause whenever and wherever they choose.

A recent survey of mobile TV carried out by Comscore recently painted a situation where just over half the UK population expressed no interest in the genre.

But Bruce Renny, marketing director with Rok TV, told the INQ, "That leaves nearly 50 per cent interested in mobile TV. And 50 per cent of the world's mobile phone users represents an awful lot of people.

Given that there are more mobile phones in use worldwide (2.8 billion) than all the TV sets, all the computers and all the cinema screens combined, 50 per cent interest in mobile TV represents a massive potential market.

Even if - in a worst case scenario - just 1 per cent of the potential market signed up to receive mobile TV at, say, $10 per month, then that's a market worth $280 million a month. Or $3.36 billion a year. If 5 per cent sign-up, that's a global market of nearly $17 billion."

No wonder, then, Player X says it has "invested heavily in the mobile video space." µ

L'INQ
Geektv