In the business of global entertainment and digital media, the trend moves in one direction. In its latest industry outlook, accounting firm Price Waterhouse Coopers says, by 2011, spending on the convergence of home computing, wireless technology and television will exceed 50 percent of total industry spending.
Global managing partner for Price Waterhouse Coopers, Marcel Fenez, says "In summary we're entering an extremely exciting period for the industry. We've got strong growth and that growth is coming in different areas than what we have seen before. Its obviously underlined by broadband and wireless penetration but what it really means for the industry is opportunity, change."
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| Marcel Fenez |
"The huge markets of China and India are leading that growth but something that we are seeing this year is the emergence of Latin America as a real power growth as well. Not yet in terms of rates of growth as Asia, but certainly developing very quickly."
Most impressive is the rise in wireless communications. India, for example, sees an average increase of six million mobile phone subscribers per month. And Fenez says by 2011, "People will be spending more on video games than they have been doing on music. And then finally casinos, again, a completely different story, but the emergence again of Asia particularly in terms of Macau which is now bigger than Las Vegas and the integrated resort that we are going to be seeing developed in Singapore."
And there are other challenges too. Among them, protecting intellectual property.
"Obviously in various parts of the world and almost globally we're seeing illegal downloads and other forms of piracy. One of the ways obviously to deal with that is to consider alternative business models which are more advertising focused."
Price Waterhouse Coopers says advertising spending is expected to increase by more than $100 billion in five years, fueled in part by the rapid growth of the World Wide Web.
