Rubberduck reveals mobile TV growth - Live TV content and iPhone applications generates surge in viewers
Rubberduck Media Lab, a division of Aspiro and Europe’s leading provider of streaming mobile TV services, today revealed massive growth in viewing figures across its hosted platform triggered by the availability of popular live content.
The company’s hosted mobile TV service saw viewing figures increase by 75 per cent during 2009. Much of the growth could be attributed to the launch of its iPhone 3GS application, which in the late summer topped the iTunes App Store download chart in select markets. Rubberduck’s customers include T-Mobile, Telefónica O2, Telenor, 3, and Entel. Rubberduck also revealed that on larger live sporting action events some 30-50,000 unique viewers tune in between two or three times to watch between 20-25 minutes per event. At peak times, the platform was managing and switching more than 10,000 concurrent live viewing streams per second. Gunnar Sellæg, CEO of Aspiro comments: “These are outstanding figures and demonstrate that the appetite for live mobile TV content is strong.” Sellæg confirmed that the company was now handling some 10 million mobile TV streams, i.e. viewers, per quarter and that sport was now accounting for around 27 percent of the content. Soccer is by far the most popular sport– representing some 90 percent of the sporting material. “With the forthcoming Winter Olympics, and the Soccer World Cup in the summer, we expect demand for mobile TV to continue to grow,” he added. Rubberduck provides a hosted streaming Mobile TV service to operators in many major markets worldwide including Germany, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland and Chile. Importantly, the company also holds digital rights agreements with a host of major broadcasters including the BBC, the Disney Channel, CNN, CNBC and Turner. The company said that the growth could also be attributed to the coming together of three factors: better handsets, user-friendly applications and premium content. “Mobile TV is successful when those key elements fall into place,” says Rubberduck CEO Erling Paulsen, “and we have the market knowledge and the technology know-how to help deliver that success.” Rubberduck’s mobile TV application allows users of a wide range of handsets – including the iPhone, Google’s Nexus One and models from all the major handset brands - to watch TV broadcasts in real time. This solution is ideal for operators and broadcasters wishing to distribute TV on the go.
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