More Money for MobiTV<< Comcast Plays another "Platform" | Main | Viacom Peels an Onion >> Todd Chanko | July 12, 2006, 11:58 AM Mobile video received an important endorsement today: Oak Investment Partners announced it was funding MobiTV in a Series C round worth $70 million. MobiTV's press release claimed that its "...products already reach more than one million paying subscribers across the globe." If true, a very generous estimate could place MobiTV's annual revenues at $60 million - not shabby for a company founded in 1999, during the stone age of cell phone technology. However, lest one believe that mobile video is a gold mine, let's place these one million global paying video subscribers in context. There are over 219 million mobile subscribers in the US alone, rendering MobiTV's US subs a virtual statistical error. What this funding acknowledges is that the carriers themselves may not be prepared to invest in the technology necessary for mobile video. Given cable operators' needs to still recoup their over $90 billion investment in digital infrastructure, such hesitance on the part of wireless carriers is understandable. On the other hand, these carriers will still need to feed the 3G maw. |
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