Love & Text: Juniper Research Projects Mobile Dating Revenues To Reach $1 billion 2012

Valentine's Day is still months away and already word's out that romance is raking in the revenues for mobile dating services.

Juniper Research says the spending on the category may surpass $1 billion by 2012.

It appears the number of users of such services is expected to rise to 260 million in that time frame, up from 40 million today - driven by demand in both developed and emerging markets. Heck, they're talking about 60 million users in the Indian sub-continent alone.

In a statement, Dr Windsor Holden, the reports author, states: "Major brands such as Match.com and Webdate have recognized that customers are willing to pay a mobility premium for 24/7 access to these services and are increasing deploying mobile applications to complement and enhance their existing
offerings."

Holden added that the sector was also becoming increasingly attractive to start-ups seeking to launch cross-platform services from the outset.

"The increasing proliferation of 3G handsets and a mean that companies are increasing confident of introducing converged services at the outset. Furthermore, those companies which embrace such a strategy - such as Flirtomatic - are experiencing significantly higher levels of traffic from their WAP users than from their users on the fixed Internet."

Other findings:

*    At the present time, the largest mobile dating markets by user numbers are Japan and India

*    The low level of fixed penetration in India, and the increasing tendency in the country to use mobile services directly as an aide not merely for dating, but for marriage, suggests that overall penetration here will be significantly higher than elsewhere in the world

*    Many customers will use mobile dating as an adjunct to, rather than instead of, their fixed internet dating services

Call it dialing for dates. Drive-by-dating. Or just plain mobile romance. The point is, it's big - and about to get even bigger.

Find out more, here.

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