An earlier presentation from David Rubio, COO of Cisco China, highlighted this potential. Of the close to 300 million plus internet users, he said, more than 70 per cent are online video viewers. The majority of these consumers are not fully satisfied with the online video experience — citing interruptions and picture quality — but are for the time being willing to compromise. This, said Rubio, represented a “huge opportunity” for the right delivery systems.
The panel discussion focused mainly on one particular delivery system, mobile TV, but surprisingly not the high-end smartphone market. 3G mobile in China still accounts for less than one per cent of the mobile market, said one panelist, noting that consumers are put off by the lack of flat-rate fees.
At the same time, the number of mobile internet users accessing lower-end, WAP-enabled handsets has grown to 150 million. Anita Huang, VP of community and marketing at Tudou, said China had a two-tier mobile TV market and pointed to Tudou’s recent deal with China Mobile to provide video to WAP users.
Ren Xioayan, VP of sales for Asia and GM for Greater China at Open TV, agreed, saying that mobile video would be best concentrating on low-income markets, such as rural areas or the vast numbers of migrant workers in urban areas who have no access to TV sets but do own low-cost, WAP-enabled mobiles.
Li Feng, founder, president and CEO at Beijing Netmovie, argued that the mobile market “had not materialised yet”, and that the major business focus should be on opportunities from the growing broadband networks. He did, however, agree that the lowe-tier markets offered the greatest opportunity to video distributors. “The lower the GDP in an area, the more people you find using the internet,” he said.
The discussion finally came around to the elephant in the room: copyright. Huang said the online video market, which for the time being at least is less regulated than traditional broadcast TV, offered the best opportunity for legitimate content deals. The major roadblock, she admitted, was piracy. Huang said that although Tudou had put anti-piracy initiatives in place, it was up to the content owners to be more proactive in terms of protecting their content on line “Work with us,” she said, insisting that Tudou was open to revenue sharing deals on legitimate content.
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