US Mobile Learning Hits $460 Million in '06

Ambient Insight today announced two reports on the 2006-2011 US Mobile Learning market. Executive overviews of the reports are available for free. The market for Mobile Learning products and services across all the buyer segments is growing by 27.2% and will exceed $1.5 billion by 2011. There are now waves of new products hitting the market including language learning, test prep, training podcasts, personal learning tools, location-based services, device-embedded reference, wireless decision support, and handheld continuing education content.

"Unlike elearning which is dominated by corporate buyers, Mobile Learning is being driven by consumer, government, and healthcare buyers," said Sam Adkins, chief research officer. Packaged content will account for the largest revenues for suppliers throughout the forecast period. Adkins breaks out revenues for seven distinct types of packaged content in his report.

"But the fastest growing opportunity over the next five years is the demand for custom content development and technology services. The largest buyers for these m-learning services in terms of revenues are corporations and government agencies," added Adkins.

Key Findings:

• Content developers and publishers are aggressively converting legacy content and developing new rich multimedia Mobile Learning content
• The rapid evolution of powerful convergent and connected wireless handheld devices with mobile Web browsers
• The availability of advanced mobile operating systems, robust mobile application software, and rich client interfaces
• User interface technology that overcomes the limitations of the small device footprint of most handheld devices
• The aggressive continuation of the rollout of third-generation (3G) cellular networks in the US that began in 2005
• The rollout of fixed wireless broadband (such as WiMAX) in 2006-2007