Mobile boss on content revenues: 'Bleah'

MocoNews flagged a revealing interview with Neil Montefiore, head of MobileOne, a Singapore mobile services provider.

Consider the following quote from Montefiore, while remembering that U.S. content providers tend to look to Asian and European economic centers for the state of the art in mobile applications and adoption:

"The actual content money is … bleah. About 1.5 to two percent of total revenues. Voice is about 70 percent. Pure data transport is about five percent, and text and value added services are the rest. That’s why all these big statements on mobile content and advertising just make me say, 'Come on, guys.'"

Does that mean mobile content is a loser? Not if your motivation is market share, promotions, brand extension or any other non-monetary compensation. It has become progressively easier to offer Web-style content in mobile-compatible formats, so experimentation doesn't cost much. But if you're in it for the money, you'd better freshen up your food stamp application while you wait.

And if you think the money's just hiding in that "text and value added services" category, ask yourself how many mobile text messages are truly one-to-one or one-to-friends communication vs. content providers delivering their goods.

Does that mean mobile content revenues will always be paltry? I don't think so. The types of content consumers might purchase in a mobile environment, if they are supported and usable in enough handsets, should be little different from what they might purchase on the Web: music, video, highly relevant information services and alerts.

Support, usability and then adoption will all come, and with adoption we get revenue growth. Keep in mind, though, how quickly all those content categories filled up with competitors on the Web. Many today remain oversaturated for their revenue bases. I'd expect the same thing to happen in mobile.

And keep in mind how many content categories on the Web (including most news) have a well-established consumer price point of "free." If anyone charges anything for making such content available in mobile networks, it's the carriers. And you see how well MobileOne is doing with that. "Bleah," indeed.