Ad-funded social networks will provide the bulk of revenues in the mobile user-generated content (UGC) space by 2013, according to a new report from Juniper Research. The report says that the total value of the UGC market - comprising social networking, dating and personal content delivery (PCD) services - will rise from nearly $1.1 billion in 2008 to more than $7.3 billion in 2013, with social networking overhauling dating to become the largest revenue generating segment by 2009.
Other findings from the report include:
• The number of active users of mobile social networking sites is expected to rise from 54 million in 2008 to nearly 730 million in 2013.
• The Far East & China region will be most popular in terms of mobile user number for mobile social networking and PCD throughout the forecast period, but the Indian Sub Continent will become the largest region for mobile dating services by 2010
• There will be more than 9 billion downloads from PCD sites by 2013, of which 32% will be ad-supported.