MEF Releases Ad-funded Entertainment Findings

The Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) has published new research investigating the impact of Ad-funded Mobile Entertainment (AFME) on the South East Asian market. The research shows that AFME will help offset the revenues lost to piracy on mobile content such as games, music and ringtones. This will help grow the mobile entertainment industry in the region beyond network-controlled content such as Ringback Tones.
MEFs members-only report: Ad-Funded Mobile Entertainment: AFMEs impact on SE Asia, forecasts that Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand will achieve $2.6 million (1.75 million) AFME revenue by 2013. Although these revenues appear relatively small, the MFE says, they represent a significant amount of activity of 52 million clickthroughs on AFME content.   
In addition to protecting revenues, AFME will play an important role in the overall growth of the mobile entertainment market, the report says, with around 50% of AFME revenue being used to upsell other premium content by 2013. 
Our membership is telling us there are clear benefits to ad-funded content, says MEF Asia Chair, Stefan Rust. This is not just replacing revenues lost through piracy, but also helping to grow mobile entertainment revenues in the long-term. This growth in mobile entertainment revenues reflects a maturing mobile data market across Asia,  and will also drive innovation for mobile advertising to develop beyond messaging and banner advertisements.
To address its members needs, MEF discussed its recommendations as part of a workshop during its official annual Asia event, the Mobile Asia Congress in Macau, last week to educate local content providers on the benefits of ad-funding premium content to exponentially increase the total market; and to develop working guidelines and timeframes for the re-introduction of value chains for mobile entertainment presently lost to piracy.
MEF members can receive a free copy of the South East Asia AFME report by sending an email to: ksenia@m-e-f.org