eMarketer is predicting that by 2013, nearly 50% of mobile phone users will access the mobile Internet at least monthly. Along with rising smartphone shipments and increases in spending on mobile data plans, this will create a growing mobile content market.
Mobile Internet users, used to a largely ad-supported Web, will expect free content on their phones as well. But content owners, after years of experience with monetization, will have a direct-revenue mindset. Mobile applications are a major channel for content delivery to mobile devices. In September 2009, the Yankee Group estimated that US paid smartphone application revenues would reach $4.2 billion in 2013—an order of magnitude above the 2009 estimate of $343 million.
