Survey Sez 06/27/12

According to Informa Telecoms & Media, operators will see their share of mobile content and commerce revenue drop from 44 percent in 2011 to 31 percent in 2016 globally. The operators’ market share will shrink in such areas as mobile music, mobile games, mobile TV/video, mobile messaging, location-based services and chat/social-networking during the next five years, as these services go increasingly “over the top.” This fall in market share would be more precipitous if it wasn’t for the growing role that operators will play in mobile app payments. “But operators could miss out on the opportunity afforded by carrier billing if they don’t make it more affordable and accessible to app-store owners and developers, and if they do not introduce more efficient and flexible systems than the clunky and unreliable PSMS,” notes Guillermo Escofet, senior analyst…Valued at approximately $430 million in 2012, the mobile device hardware security market will be worth $1.9 billion by 2017, says ABI Research. Revenues generated by secure elements for near field communication (NFC) and biometric sensors are factored into the mix, though relatively small compared to embedded chip security; last year, only 7 percent of smartphones had NFC capabilities. Even so, an increase in such point of sale (POS) transactions as purchasing coffee will increase the number of NFC smartphones. As such, within the next two years, NFC security will account for half of mobile device hardware security revenues.