Nokia sees a time with phones doubling as TVs
During the next World Cup, you will still watch your favourite teams on television, but not long after that, Nokia envisions people tuning into games on their mobile phones instead.
Nokia's consumer research has found that after five years from the launch of mobile television services, some cell-phone users will primarily watch television on their mobile devices, according to Mark Selby, vice president of multimedia for the Finnish telecom giant.Despite the tiny screens on mobile phones, consumers will watch television programmes on their handsets more often because people "want to watch TV where and whenever they want", said Selby. The Nokia executive cited the old hi-fi stereo industry as an example of what the future might hold. "Sales of hi-fi, high-end systems collapsed, despite having higher quality sound than PCs and digital music players, because people want to listen to music when they want," he said. "They don't want to sit in a room." Despite early nay-sayers, mobile phones have already become the primary gadget that most people use to take pictures since they usually carry their phones rather than digital cameras. Nokia's latest consumer survey - the most comprehensive ever taken in the industry - included 42,000 interviews conducted in 16 countries. Nokia found that 44 per cent of consumers now perceived their cell phones as their primary cameras, Selby said. The survey also revealed that more than one-third (36 per cent) of respondents surf the Internet regularly with their mobile phones and 67 per cent of them expected mobile phones to replace their MP3 players. "Twenty-one per cent said they would be as upset about losing their mobile hones as losing their wallets, car keys, credit cards or even their wedding rings," Selby said. Pichaya Changsorn, The Nation
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