A recent study of ABI Research has revealed the fact that the market value for mobile video telephony services including video mail, video calling and video sharing services will go beyond USD 17 billion by the year 2012.

The result is easy to understand especially when considering the growing number of mobile carriers worldwide that are improving their video messaging and telephony offerings. At this moment, it's worth USD 1 billion until the end of the year, with a growth of almost 75 percent per year, as to eventually reach the high estimated number at the end of the next five years.

"The Web 2.0 phenomena and sites that allow posting of mobile video will increase demand for mobile video services. However, global demand inhibitors include income levels, messaging and video viewing alternatives, and handset capabilities. And then there is the uncertainty factor for operators of video services on network utilization which will affect their promotion and pricing strategies", states principal analyst Dan Shey.

"The biggest opportunity for carriers in developing world countries is with video messaging services. The mobile phone is the most common device in these regions and 2.5G networks are sufficient for this service. With more people migrating and immigrating to find work, video messaging can be the service that provides a rich form of communication for social and familial connectivity", Dan Shey further observes.

Mobile video viewing capabilities greatly differ from one country to another, according to their development level. Moreover, they have to take into account all other regions, as only 10 percent of the service revenues are provided by the developing regions of the world.

For this reason, ABI Research has taken eight different regions in the world and has created forecasts for the uptake of mobile video messaging and telephony services. This includes video phone penetration and shipments and video services uptake by customer, service type and revenues too.