According to the marketing intelligence company Jupiter MMXI, revenues from advertising, mcommerce and subscriptions will reach $7.5 billion (#5.3 billion) by 2003.
Hardly surprisingly, the analysts expect Asia to be at the vanguard of revenue creation, accounting for 66% of the figure. Jupiter considers that, as the Asian population is already more used to mobile surfing, it is again more likely to spend a greater amount of time and money on wireless services – an average of $37-worth (#26) for each member of the 136 million connected.
Western Europeans are not likely too be too far behind, generating 23% of the overall revenue figure. The analysts expect European users to react more warmly to future versions of Wap – and also to I-Mode releases – than has been the case with the initial Wap services.
Will this be an end to the “Wap is crap” refrain? Jupiter expects so, confidently forecasting a rise in advertising, mcommerce and subscriptions revenue from $100 million (#70 million) this year to almost $8 billion (#5.6 billion) by 2005. Those European companies who have invested heavily in 2.5G and 3G infrastructure and services will be crossing their fingers that this is indeed the case.
