Online gaming to fuel $150bn digital content market by 2019

It cited the success of platforms such as Valve's Steam (which now has over 125m active accounts worldwide) as key drivers in this evolution, while revenues from consoles/handhelds were diminishing as players migrated their gameplay to tablets and higher-end smartphones.

Strong growth is also expected to come in the Lifestyle segment, where dating services such as Match.com, eHarmony and Zoosk are seeing marked uplifts in revenues from their mobile channels.

The research also highlighted a dual paradigm shift in content monetisation models. In the first instance, pay per download now accounts for around 10% of mobile content revenues, with the bulk of revenue achieved post download. Secondly, it highlighted the transition from content ownership to content access, with consumers needing to engage with the same content across multiple devices.

Research author, Dr Windsor Holden, observed: "The increased consumer desire for 24/7 access on any device leads to greater opportunities for players that can offer subscription-based, unlimited content streaming."

The research noted that leading OTT players such as Apple, Google and Amazon were in pole position to capitalise on this transition, with each now offering cloud-based solutions both for personal storage and premium content access. It argued that if consumers are tied into multiple products from an OTT, those consumers becomes increasingly reluctant to churn away from one element of the brand, as he/she loses access to content across their devices.

The whitepaper, Digital Content ~ An Over The Top Reaction?, is available to download from the Juniper Research website together with further details of the full research and interactive dataset.