GfK Launches Mobile Content Research Firm

GfK and entertainment sales data firm Media-Control, have announced the formation of a joint venture, GfK M², to track mobile content sales. The company will get its data direct from content and network providers, and hardware and component manufacturers.

James Randall, GfK Commercial Director told DRNO that as the global agency tracks mobile phone sales and usage in about 70 markets around the world, it has built strong relationships with both the traditional and virtual network operators. In the UK it works with all five 'traditional' networks, as well as virtual network operators such as Virgin and Tesco mobile. Media-Control, for its part, has strong links with entertainment markets including games, music and video publishers.

GfK M² will have access to the data providers' platforms – whether a network operator's portal, or the database of a third party such as Jamba – to extract live sales data for individual download transactions or at title level. This data will be integrated to provide a picture of the total market.

GfK M² will initially cover the most important European markets, including the big 5 economies plus Benelux and then progressively expanding throughout Europe, the USA, Japan and Korea. A video game download monitor will be the first service to launch but the firm says it will 'gradually' take in all types of mobile content, including ring tones, full track music, videos and mobile TV.

'Within both Media-Control and GfK there are a number of different tools for delivering data to clients,' explained Randall 'There are very detailed interrogative databases, built around our 'GfK Star Tracking Scorer' data warehouse system. We use one database with one set of definitions that covers the globe, which means that customers in any part of the world will be able to interrogate the data by country/region etc – either over the net, or from a downloadable format, straight onto their PCs.'

GfK M² will be provided as a subscription service and initially data will be collated weekly, but with on-demand analysis slated for the future. Modelling will be used to represent the total channel where only a portion of the players are contributing data.

'We believe that mobile content could be to 2007, what the Internet was to retailing in 2006' says Randall. 'What's interesting is that whereas the phenomenon of Internet retailing took six or seven years to become established, some figures we've collected in from Germany already show that around 10% of music downloads are through mobile phones. It's a very exciting time to be launching this business in this market.'

British consumers currently spend about £15 billion a year on their mobile phones, of which about £3-4 billion is hardware and c.£10 billion phone calls and SMS. The service will cover 'anything which is not voice or text', including music, games, ring tones, news and sport services, video clips and (a major component) adult content.

Nick White, Head of Content at Virgin Mobile says the industry is in need of robust market data. 'GfK has proven to be able to deliver it in hardware, so it is our trusted provider in content.'

The new company has appointed Jacques Combet as its Strategy and Business Development Director. He worked in mobile phone sector management positions at Alcatel between 1993 and 2005, finishing as President of the mobile phone Division. From 1978 to 1993 he was employed by Texas Instruments, becoming Marketing Director of the European Consumer Division in 1986.

Combet says provider data is crucial to an accurate picture of the market. While working for Alcatel, he dealt with three categories of potential information vendors, and notes: 'Some were building their estimates based upon consumer research, some were building their estimates based on interviews with professionals and GfK were using information from providers. The only accurate picture came from the providers.'

GfK M² will utilise a network of over 2000 staff worldwide. The partner firms are online at www.gfkms.com and www.media-control.de .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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