Mobile content revenue to top $52B by 2013, with a catch

Mobile network operators could rake in $52 billion in mobile content revenues by 2013, up from $23 billion this year, but only if they modify their mobile content business models to avoid becoming ‘dumb pipes,’ according to a new report from Juniper Research.
The firm said the global mobile content market is expected to be worth $167 billion by 2013, with revenues shared among MNOs, content providers, content aggregators, billing companies and others. Currently, MNOs take a large proportion of the revenues generated by content providers for use of their networks, resulting in high prices for end-users and unhappiness among content vendors.
Juniper predicts carriers have three options, including ‘dumb pipe,’ ‘smart pipe’ or ‘on-portal.’
According to Juniper, the smart pipe model would not increase MNOs’ share of the overall mobile content appreciably, but revenues would increase in value by 125% during the period. The on-portal scenario would increase content provider share of the market to 68% in 2013 from 54% this year.