Nearly one-fifth of active gamers in the U.S. spend money on virtual items

The gaming business is undergoing a major shift away from subscription models as virtual items become a larger part of its economy, reaching almost $6 billion worldwide in microtransaction revenues by 2015, according to international research firm Parks Associates.

Gamers are investing real money in virtual items in Farmville, World of Warcraft, and other online games, to the point they are filing lawsuits to establish ‘ownership’ of these virtual goods. The enormous player base, availability on multiple devices, and the introduction of instruments such as Facebook Credits contribute to growing revenues.

The Parks Associates’ new report Online Gaming: Global Outlook finds 19% of active gamers in the U.S. spend money on in-game virtual items. In contrast, subscribers to premium online game services decreased from 35% in 2008 to 28% in 2010. Publishers of social games, like Zynga, have seen revenues explode as larger percentages of their customers opt to pay for virtual items. The same trend is visible for massively multiplayer online games, where companies such as Nexon America have managed to reach millions of dollars in revenues from microtransactions.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to justify subscription fees. Thanks to social games and free-to-play MMOs, both casual and hardcore players have the option of playing quality games online for free. The virtual-items model that has proven so successful in Asia is finally generating significant revenues in North America.

Latin America economic progress & tech innovations driving TV-services growth

Television services in Latin America will grow by double digits over the next five years, outpacing service growth in Asia and other emerging markets.

The report, Television Services: Global Outlook (2nd Edition) reveals the Latin American region will achieve a cumulative annual growth rate of 10% through 2014, compared to less than two percent in Western Europe and North America. Already major players are seeing better-than-expected results. DirecTV recently tripled its quarterly Latin America subscriber additions, due in part to demand for World Cup coverage.

While Asia and Eastern Europe are exciting emerging markets, Latin America will be the next land of opportunity for television services. Growth in the region and technological innovations, as well as changes in TV service regulations, will help fuel the boom in the area’s consumer television services. Over the next few years, we will see advanced services including IPTV, interactive features, and even 3D TV introduced into these markets.

Telefonica and other telcos are anticipating legal changes in Brazil and Argentina that will allow them to offer television services. Colombia, one of the few countries to allow telcos to provide TV services, has seen increases in competition and service variety as a result, including gaming and other interactive TV features. Parks Associates’ analysts report Net and Telefonica in Brazil and Cablevision in Argentina have demonstrated trials of 3DTV.

Parks Associates supports Social Networking World Forum, Asia

Parks Associates is supporting the Social Networking World Forum -Asia from Sept 22-23, 2009 in Singapore, Asia.

The Social Networking World Forum - Asia is supported by some of the largest global brands and organizations who are using social media to effectively execute marketing and PR strategies.

The event also features from regional heads of the popular social networking sites to provide insight on market conditions and learn how they adapted their service to expand to this region. The event also features debate and analysis on current trends, market forces, and how brands and organizations are exploiting this new media to market products and services.

For more event info, click here.

Parks Associates forecasts over 640 million broadband households worldwide by 2013

Value-added services, stimulus funds will help increase subscriber numbers --

The demand for high-bandwidth applications will jump in the next few years as the number of households worldwide with broadband will reach close to 650 million by 2013, according to international research firm Parks Associates. The firm’s new report Broadband Services: Global Outlook warns that service providers will have to continue investing in network technologies to accommodate multiple services such as video-on-demand and converging social-networking applications.

Parks Associates reports the number of broadband households worldwide grew by over 18% in 2008 to exceed 400 million. Asia-Pacific is the largest market, accounting for over 160 million subscribers, and it will have over 49% of the global market share by 2013.

In the U.S., the federal government, at the request of the Obama Administration, will soon release billions of dollars from the stimulus package to promote expansion of affordable high-speed Internet services in rural areas, which will open new areas in this country to advanced online services.

Bandwidth will continue to be a focus as the operators re-architect their networks to deliver multiple services over the same infrastructure; however, in such a competitive field, bandwidth alone is not enough to win subscribers. Blended applications, combining services such as online video and customer support, offer operators an opportunity to increase ARPU. In addition, innovative new services will help differentiate service providers, which can then compete on factors beyond pricing or raw bandwidth.

For the full press release, click here.

Parks Associates forecasts over two billion 3G subscribers will motivate convergence in mobile and fixed-line services

Converged voice and data applications will reduce subscriber churn and increase operators’ ARPU--

A new report from Parks Associates finds worldwide growth in the number of 3G subscribers will motivate service providers, under pressure to maintain customer satisfaction and build revenues, to expand on traditional voice offerings to include converged fixed-mobile services.

Fixed-Mobile Convergence: Consumers and Business Models predicts that the number of 3G subscribers will exceed 2.5 billion worldwide by 2013, with over one billion in Asia alone. The tremendous expansion of this large service population will catalyze the development of fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), creating new service options where users can access video, audio, and community offerings via mobile devices once limited to traditional voice applications.

Fixed-Mobile Convergence: Consumers and Business Models examines the current state of 3G deployments worldwide and the drivers for fixed-mobile convergence.