India's market for mobile TV services is set to touch $360 million in 2008, said Asia's leading provider of innovative IT market research and advisory firm, Springboard Research.

According to the firm, 12 million people will sign up for the services within the first year of launch itself.

According to the report titled Mobile TV in India: Understanding the Mobile Entertainment Needs of Indian Users, in the first year of operation, mobile TV could reach a penetration level of 5 to 6 percent of the total mobile subscriber base in India.

Mobile TV marries the two dominant consumption trends of entertainment and mobile telephony in India, said Ravi Shekhar Pandey, manager (syndicated research), Springboard Research.

The market is ripe for the launch of mobile TV services and we believe that India will have around 12 million mobile TV subscribers within the first year of launch of service, Pandey said.

Mobile telephone operators will have an advantage over standalone mobile TV operators in that the former already have users subscribing to their value-added services. However, the success of either operator will be dependent on content offered and price charged for the service, he added.

The report recommended that mobile service providers should offer on-demand, pay-per-view option that does not tie a user to a monthly subscription for mobile TV. Springboard also recommended close cooperation between mobile operators and broadcasters for a profitable business model for mobile TV service in India.

Public service broadcaster Doordarshan is the only company currently offering limited mobile TV service. Nokia, Spice Telecom, Qualcomm and Samsung are few of the stakeholders actively promoting the adoption of mobile TV in India.

India T-mobile Qualcomm Samsung