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Mobile TV gets cash injection in Asia
Territories covered
Asia-Pacific
China,
India,
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Published:
20-Aug-08
While a gloomy atmosphere currently hangs over the mobile TV industry in the US and Europe due to poor service uptake and the emergence of disruptive technologies, developing markets China and India are getting all the investors' attention. - Israel-based mobile TV chip maker Siano Mobile Silicon raised $17.5m (Euro 12m) in a third round of financing bringing the total investment to $52m (Euro 35m). The money will be used to fund the company's expansion in Asian markets such as China, Japan and South Korea. Siano has been selling its SMS 1100 ISDB-T capable chipsets since January 2008 in Japan where over 30m ISDB-T handsets have been shipped in the past 24 months. Siano has also launched another receiver chip especially for the Chinese market in June 2008. The chip uses Chinese mobile TV standard CMMB and is being trialled by the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) at the Beijing Olympics Games.
- Indian mobile satellite start-up Devas Multimedia has received Rs317 crore ($72.5m, Euro 50m) from German telco group Deutsche Telekom in exchange for a 17 per cent stake in the company. The German company has the option to increase its stake to a maximum of 26 per cent, keeping Devas' foreign investment below the 74 per cent cap imposed by India's telecoms regulator TRAI. Other investors include Columbia Capital and Telecom Ventures. Devas is planning to launch a mobile TV network based on the technology S-DMB in India in 2009.
Our take...
Screen Digest believes that India and China offer great potential for mobile TV. Since 3G has not commercially launched yet in these countries, mobile consumers are not currently distracted by a vast array of mobile content services. The appeal of mobile TV is therefore much higher than in Western markets. Additionally, users have not been deceived by the quality of mobile TV services over 3G networks as they have in Europe. In January 2008, mobile TV chipset company Telegent Systems reportedly sold 2.5m mobile analog TV chipsets in China.
Both investments contribute to the development and support of mobile satellite technologies in particular. The service to be deployed by Devas Multimedia is similar to the one currently operated by TU Media (partly owned by SK Telecom) in South Korea. TU Media has just over 1.2m subscribers after 3 years of operation and needs to reach 2m subscribers to break even. TU Media's struggle can be explained by the popularity of the competing T-DMB free-to-air mobile TV network. In India Doordarshan is currently offering a DVB-H mobile TV service for free in Delhi. However, poor geographical coverage and Doordarshan's plans to make users pay for the service is set to soften Devas' entry into the Indian mobile TV market. In light of the call for pan-European mobile satellite licence applications by the European Commission, Deutsche Telekom could be looking at applying Devas' expertise to the European market.
Siano Mobile Silicon has been doing well since its launch in December 2004. The company has secured deals with processor companies such as Intel and Marvell Technologies, and with device manufacturers ONDA (Italy), BenQ and Inventec Appliance (Taiwan). There is no doubt that the investment will be used to strengthen the company's position in the Chinese mobile TV market. With over half a billion mobile subscribers, China has the largest addressable market in the world when it comes to mobile services. According to Screen Digest's analysis, China and India combined will have over 100m mobile TV subscribers by 2012.
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