Digital media predictions for 2009

Investment bank GP Bullhound has forecast a broadly positive outlook for the European digital media sector in 2009 as call for entries open for the Media Momentum Awards and Top 50 league table of Europe’s fastest growing online, mobile and technology companies.  

Mobile technology

According to GP Bullhound, specific sectors are likely to defy the economic downturn and continue to show strong growth in 2009. 

The mobile industry will see renewed interest and growth in 2009 following the success of the iPhone and developments such as the Gphone resulting in consumers taking ‘PC’ habits with them on the road.

According to a recent M:Metrics survey iPhone users are ten times more likely to use web search, six-20 times more likely to view video content and 100 times more likely to access a social network.

“We believe the success of the iPhone third party application environment is forcing a shift in the way the mobile industry deals with developers, materially improving the business model for mobile software developers and Internet companies wanting to target the fourth screen,” added Madhvani.

Digital Agencies

The growth in mobile is also likely to impact on the success of Digital Agencies which, due to their business models, have dominated the Media Momentum Top 50. While GP Bullhound expects to see a general slowdown in their growth in 2009, those agencies with strong mobile, web, social media and viral seeding teams are likely to benefit from convergence and the emergence of larger budgets in these areas.

Online Gaming

There is considerable evidence that use of casual gaming sites increases in a downturn. GP Bullhound expects a number of these websites to feature heavily in 2009, particularly those that charge per game or operate a subscription model especially old favourites such as King.com and new players Playfish, Gameduell and Spineworld.

Online Retail

Online fashion retailers are also likely to display unprecedented growth as consumers shift spending from the High Street to online.

Manish Madhvani, partner at GP Bullhound, said: “For years, traditional retailers have feared revenue cannibalisation and brand destruction from most e-commerce related activities. However, the key online fashion brands have now demonstrated that selling through the Internet can actually enhance brand perception through exceptional customer service, value added merchandise and exclusive online clubs.”

In addition to the success of multi-brand sites such as ASOS, Net-a-Porter and Yoox, new online shopping models will see significant growth including private sales firms which deal with excess stock like Vente Privee and social shopping sites such as Kaboodle and Osoyou built around the entertainment and communal aspects of clothes shopping.

Publishers

However, GP Bullhound expects 2009 to be a tough year for digital publishers with many expected to drop out of the list having either been acquired or have felt pressure on advertising revenue.

Madhvani added: “Digital publishers will have to innovate to generate additional revenue streams via subscriptions and harnessing their stables of online users to generate incremental ecommerce revenues. We are seeing some of the key publishers add innovative services where readers can purchase the new goods and services they are reading about.”