JupiterResearch Forecasts Majority of European Online Content & Services Audiences Won't Pay by 2011
Friday, 18 May 2007
JupiterResearch, a leading authority on the impact of the Internet and emerging consumer technologies on businesses, has warned that non-paying content and services audiences will dwarf paying audiences by 2011, with just 14 percent of the cumulative total paying. In its new report, "European Content, Services, and Activity Forecast 2006 to 2011: Understanding the Impact of Free," Jupiter for the first time forecasts both paying and non-paying online audiences by activity type.
Despite significant improvements in the availability and quality of content and services, success stories are relatively thin on the ground and European consumer demand is actually declining. Key to this trend is greater consumer awareness of the realities and limitations of digital paid content offerings, such limited catalogue, file quality and DRM interoperability issues. Adoption by relatively small of enthusiasts rather than broader, mainstream audiences will be key to future revenue growth.
Music and Games will consolidate their current market leading positions and will generate the largest paid content revenues in 2011: €1.4 billion and €1.0 billion, respectively, accounting for 60 percent of total when combined. Security and Safety will be the largest paid services sector with revenues of €1.3 billion.
"With a few notable exceptions such as music, the European online Paid Content and Services market has failed to make significant headway," said Mark Mulligan, VP at JupiterResearch and lead author of the report. "The Internet remains a predominately free, advertising supported medium. Though premium revenues will reach €6.8 billion in 2011 the vast majority of online content and services will not pay. There is a clear need for content owners to explore ways in which they can explicitly share in advertising revenues to offset modest direct revenues online and to reach elusive, typically young, non-paying online audiences."
The complete findings of the report are immediately available to JupiterResearch clients online at www.jupiterresearch.com. For details on JupiterResearch's methodology, visit www.jupiterresearch.com/bin/item.pl/methodology.