Mobile revenues forecast to reach $79bn in 2017

Annual revenues from mobile entertainment services will reach nearly $75 billion by 2017 according to a new report published today by Juniper Research.

This is pretty impressive growth from 2013’s estimated revenues of $39 billion, and Juniper says it bases these findings on improvements in monetization strategies combined with more app-based mobile devices like smart watches.

Juniper also claims the Far East and China will drive the majority of revenue during the forecast period – something only possible if the region continues its meteoric rise as a market.

Though this is strangely not listed in the press release as a cause for the anticipated doubling of mobile revenues, it’s hard to imagine it didn’t feature prominently in the math.

The report, titled Mobile Entertainment: Leisure, Video, Music, Games, Adult & Gambling 2013-2018, should be taken with a grain of salt considering the findings are based on speculation about future technologies and economic climate, but some key findings do look to be corroborated by other studies.

The findings name games as the biggest area of mobile spending, where freemium continues to dominate the market – at least in 2013.

The well-established ‘Christmas Spike’ in mobile downloads is expected to be even larger this year due to the launch of the iPad Air.

As always, App discovery is anticipated to be the biggest challenge to mobile developers.