(keitai-l) Re: Content provider profits

From: Jeffrey L. Funk <funk_at_iir.hit-u.ac.jp>
Date: 08/13/03
Message-Id: <5.0.2.7.2.20030813145504.040f2188@localhost>
Hello everyone,
the percentage of profitable content businesses is a fairly meaningless 
number. there are always a large percentage of firms that don't make money 
particularly during the early years of an industry. for example, there were 
75 manufacturers of automobiles in the US in 1925, most of whom were 
clearly not profitable. obviously the lack of profitability did not mean 
the industry did not have a future (many people incorrectly make this 
argument in the mobile Internet).
more specifically, the 20% figure comes from Natsuno's estimate on the 
number of CPs with more than 3 million yen a month in revenues (30,000 subs 
at 100 yen a month). it does not include the CPs who make money by selling 
products and take ticket reservations, the retailers, manufacturers and 
other firms who send surveys and coupons, nor the firms that offer 
information supporting their products (e.g, train lines).
The real issue is that while there are many firms that make money, there 
are just a few firms that make most of the money in the contents business. 
but this is the way all industries work. For example, even in "relatively" 
mature industries like mobile phones and PC software, two firms (who 
everybody knows) make most of the profits. For this reason, I expect that 
the percentage of firms making money in the mobile Internet contents 
business will decline while the profits of the most successful firms will grow.
cheers,
jeff funk

At 14:31 03/08/13 +0900, you wrote:

>Hello,
>
>One more stumper for all of you.  In June 2001, one of the execs at DoCoMo
>suggested that only 20% of iMode content businesses were profitable.  Does
>anyone have any numbers suggesting that this has changed?  Any specifics here?
Received on Wed Aug 13 09:07:48 2003