Social networking services will be the dominant force in market growth for mobile user-generated content, new research suggests.Across the world, end-user-generated revenues from social networking sites as well as dating and content delivery services will rise from $572 million in 2007 to more than $5.7 billion in 2012, according to Juniper Research.
Social networking itself is forecast to account for 50 per cent of this total.
Report author Dr Windsor Holden commented: "Even though social networking sites are in their infancy, the exponential growth experienced by a number of mobile service providers - in some cases achieved primarily through viral marketing - would seem to affirm that there is huge potential in this area.
"The key challenge now is for those providers to monetise that interest."
The highest growth is anticipated to occur in developing markets where fixed broadband access is limited, he added, saying that in such markets the mobile phone is the predominant method by which people access the internet.
Therefore, he continued, the majority of online social networking may well occur via the handset as opposed to computers in the future.
It was also reported that the number of active users of such sites is set to increase from 14 million in 2007 to almost 600 million in 2012.
Juniper Research is a telecoms analyst company, specialising in the wireless and mobile sector.
