Candy Crush, Clash Of Clans And The Future Of Mobile Games
From Silos To Ecosystems

Karol Severin

August 2016

mobile games

clash of clans

freemium games

Though mobile games differ largely by genre, demographics and business models, most share the status of social connector and cultural identifier. Much like music companies, mobile gaming companies often struggle with conversion to payment as well as a regular production of hits to retain momentum in the long term.

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Music Market Region Profile: Latin America
Streaming Drives A Music Market Renaissance

Leo Morel

March 2016

Streaming

Streaming Music

mexico

Driven by the proliferation of smartphones, streaming is beginning to gain traction across Latin America, resulting in new forms of music consumption. Whereas interest in physical formats has been steadily falling, most Latin American countries have not developed music download markets, thus creating latent digital demand.

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Decoding The Adblocking Threat
Key Players, End Games And Implications

Karol Severin

March 2016

adblocking

mobile advertising

adblockers

The desktop right now is undoubtedly where there is the most lost ad revenue due to adblocking. Adblocking on mobile may currently be smaller but this should not be an excuse for complacency and allowing the problem to acquire desktop adblocking proportions before serious notice is taken.

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US PAY-TV Disruption And Consolidation
How Streaming Video And Cord Cutting Are Re-Shaping US Pay-TV

Tim Mulligan

February 2016

US

cable tv

usa

2015 was a year of unparalleled transition for US pay-TV. AT&T’s acquisition of DirecTV catapulted the communications company to the front of the pack with a combined subscriber base of 26 million, reaching nearly a quarter of US households. Meanwhile regulators blocked Comcast’s year long bid for Time Warner, enabling rival Charter Communi...

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Mobile Market Country Profile: France
A Maturing App Market On The Brink Of MNO Consolidation

Karol Severin

February 2016

France

mobile apps

mobile

France is one of the leading European app markets. Like other key markets in the region, the French app market is already maturing with annual revenue and app buyer growth set to slow to single digits by 2020. With this shift in market dynamics, average revenue per user (ARPU) will gain importance.

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P2P In The Age Of SVOD
Rights Fragmentation Gives Piracy A Free Pass

Mark Mulligan

February 2016

Streaming

p2p

Video subscriptions

Ever since the advent of Napster, media industries have been locked in a war against free. Learning from the lessons of the music business, TV companies nipped much of the P2P demand for shows by fighting free with free itself, launching services such as Hulu and BBC iPlayer.

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State Of The Streaming Nation
A Comprehensive Assessment Of The Global Streaming Music Market

Mark Mulligan

January 2016

Subscriptions

Streaming Music

Music Subscriptions

2015 was the year streaming music came of age, with robust growth from market leader Spotify and the rapid ascent into second place of new entrant Apple Music. Though questions remain about the commercial viability of the model right across the value chain, there is no doubt that momentum is now with streaming.

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The Third Screen Revolution
The Explosion In Mobile Video

Karol Severin and Tim Mulligan

January 2016

Content strategy

mobile video

content format innovation

Mobile might be eating the world, but is it eating video? The rapid uptake of mobile video consumption in recent years has captured the attention of many as it raises questions about where the future of video consumption is headed. Though it might cannibalise some TV and online viewing time, mobile video is here to co-exist alongside its large-scre...

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Telco Music Strategy
Ironing Out The Strategic Kinks As Objectives Evolve

Mark Mulligan

November 2015

Subscriptions

Streaming

music bundles

In a few short years, telco music bundles have gone from a useful ancillary revenue stream to a core component of the streaming landscape. Despite long standing issues about how success can best be measured, telcos continue to invest heavily in music deals that are unlikely to ever deliver direct profit but that instead help drive metrics across th...

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Mobile Messaging Platforms
How Facebook’s Hedge Strategy Is Changing The Face Of Messaging

Karol Severin and Mark Mulligan

October 2015

apps

mobile apps

mobile

In just a few short years mobile messaging apps have become home to the largest group of digital audiences on the planet, with 4.8 billion cumulative monthly active users. Following websites and social networks, messaging platforms are emerging as the third phase of how audiences congregate digitally.

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User Generated Broadcast
Live Streaming Video And The Mainstream Consumer

Tim Mulligan

October 2015

Online video

Live video streaming

User Generated Broadcast

The early adopter buzz around the launches of the live video streaming apps Meerkat and Twitter-acquired Persicope have so far failed to translate into meaningful real world adoption. But these User Generated Broadcast (UGB) apps have undoubted potential.

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Global Music Forecasts 2015-2020
Declining Legacy Formats Cancel Out Streaming Growth

Mark Mulligan

October 2015

Subscriptions

music sales

Music revenue

In a few short years streaming has gone from being an interesting sideshow to the most important component of the recorded music market in terms of impact, innovation and disruption, though not in revenue terms. Indeed streaming still only represents 16% of all recorded music revenue but its growth is directly impacting virtually every other aspect...

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Variable Programming
How Online Video Is Shaking Off The Schedule Straightjacket

Tim Mulligan

September 2015

Netflix

tv networks

cord nevers

The advent of Video On Demand transformed the business models of the broadcast and pay-TV industries. Now it is set to have an equally disruptive impact on the nature of video content itself as the old analogue limits of linear TV programming no longer apply.

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Streaming Music Discovery
When The Journey Becomes The Destination

Mark Mulligan

July 2015

Streaming

free

Discovery

When YouTube first starting rising to prominence streaming music was still in its infancy. Thus even though royalty payments were far from setting the world alight, there was a clear case for YouTube views driving discovery which then led to sales. Fast forward to 2015 and digital sales are rapidly losing ground to streaming which in turn throws in...

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Facebook Video
Not The Real Deal Yet But Could Still Unseat YouTube

Mark Mulligan

July 2015

YouTube

Online video

Facebook

Facebook is emerging as a serious challenger to YouTube and is building clear momentum that is giving the incumbent cause for concern in a way that few other short form challengers have yet managed to do. The total number of videos viewed by Facebook users was 4 billion a day in April 2015, up from 3 billion only three months earlier.

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Global Video Forecast 2015-2020
Subscriptions Come Of Age

Tim Mulligan

July 2015

smartphones

broadcast

cord nevers

2015 to 2020 will be a transformational period for the video sector. Accessing TV content online will become mainstream as video penetration reaches 50% by 2019. Despite solid adoption of subscription and video sharing services, it will be the migration of mass-market TV online that will drive the explosive growth.

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Mobile Market Country Profile: Germany
A Maturing App Superpower

Karol Severin

July 2015

telco

telcos

iOS

The mobile market in Germany is in the middle of a consumer behavior shift. Smartphone penetration and app usage have entered the mainstream and digital content consumption on mobile is on the rise, but app payment remains niche. Consumers switching from traditional phone calls and texting to internet voice communication and messaging contribute to...

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Ownership to Access, And Back
Physical Ownership Acquires A New Value In The Digital Era

Tim Mulligan

July 2015

US

UK

Sweden

It seems counter intuitive to suggest the physical ownership of content has an addressable market in the digital era. Despite the ubiquity of digital delivery mechanisms for premium content, the desire for physical possession has not gone away. A market opportunity exists to provide complementary physical products both as reassurance for older gene...

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Music Publishing At A Cross Roads
How Streaming Is Transforming The Outlook For Music Publishers

Mark Mulligan

June 2015

music publishers

Subscriptions

Streaming

Everything starts with the song yet music publishers have often been the last part of the digital equation. Relative insulation from the effects of declining music sales have enabled publishers to have a far less digital centric worldview than record labels.

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The Mobile App Funnel
Benchmarking The Mobile App Customer Lifecycle

Karol Severin

May 2015

Freemium

subscription trials

user acquisition

App companies lose users and revenue right across the user acquisition and retention process. Thus as the global app market grows the amount of lost revenue accelerates also. MIDiA’s app funnel analysis reveals just where on the customer life cycle users are lost, why they go and provides industry averages to benchmark against for freemium apps ...

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