Social networking to drive mobile broadband

Social networking, dating and user-generated content sites will push mobile broadband above a billion users worldwide by 2012, Juniper Research has said in a report.

Indeed, the number of people using mobile social networking sites alone will jump from 14 million in 2007 to 600 million in five years, Juniper predicted in its report, "User-Generated Content: Social Networking, Dating and Personal Content Delivery".

"Even though social networking sites are in their infancy, the exponential growth experienced by a number of mobile service providers - in some cases achieved primarily through viral marketing - would seem to affirm that there is huge potential in this area," said the report's author, Dr Windsor Holden. "The key challenge now is for those providers to monetise that interest."

Revenues generated from delivering access to dating, social networking and other personal content sites will jump from $527 million this year to over $5.7 billion in 2012. While mobile dating and chatrooms make up 57 per cent of current user-generated revenues, that will fall to 21 per cent by 2012 - and be overtaken by social networking sites, which will rise to over half of generated revenue.

Developing markets could help fuel the growth, as mobile phones are increasingly used to access the internet rather than computers, because of limited fixed broadband.

"In these markets, the mobile phone is becoming the predominant means by which people access the internet," said Holden. "Hence, the overwhelming majority of online social networking will be conducted via the handset rather than the PC."

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