People on the move

By 2009, just under one billion mobile phone units will be shipped, up from 743.2 million in 2006. Consumers are increasingly using their mobile phones to play music and games, gamble and access adult content. As a result, the global market for mobile entertainment is predicted to be worth in the region of $40 bn by 2010. This is good news for e.g. Ironstar Helsinki which is preparing a mobile multiplayer simulation game 'PocketPal' - a mindblowing mobile experience due to be launched soon. According to Business Insight (The Future of Convergence report) worldwide annual shipments of smartphones grew from around 14.6 million units in 2003 to 26.5 million in 2004, rising to 42.5 million in 2005. The worldwide smartphone market is expected to more than triple to reach sales of 153.5 million by 2010. What is also interesting is that according to the analysts in 2009 167 million broadcast-TV-to-mobile enabled handsets will be shipped, representing almost 18% of the entire 935 million handsets which are expected to be produced in 2009. This will give interesting opportunities to content developers if nothing else. I just hope it won't take another 2-3 years until mobile services start to fly.