Analyst paints dim picture for mobile video sales

By Tom Sanders on Aug 29, 2006 9:59 AM
Filed under Hardware

Take-off for iTunes movies market delayed.

Consumers are unlikely to warm up to long form mobile video content before 2008, analyst firm In-Stat projects in a new study.

The firm considers long form video as content that is 30 minutes or longer. Consumers currently can purchase such content on UMD disks for Sony's Playstation Portable (PSP) gaming device. Apple also is selling television shows that can be played the iPod through its iTunes media store.

Sales of UMD movies have been sluggish ever since the format was launched.

Apple sold 1m videos in the first 20 days after the company launched its video store, which include music video clips and short movies. The company hasn't provided any data on its videos sales after that.

In-Stat typified current content offerings as "an experimental phase" that will last for another two years.

Market demand will be higher in part because the firm projects that there will be 50m portable media players in use by then. Those might be mobile phones with a video capability or dedicated media player devices like the iPod.