Content is King & Video is The Emperor

I believe we all agree that even in this digital era, content is king*. However, video is the emperor which is and will be ruling all forms of media content.

• Almost more than two-thirds of the mobile traffic in next five years on networks is going to be just video.**
• Connected & Mobile devices are the key content consumption devices and even surpassing TVs ***
• Its not because of the size and bandwidth hogginess of video content but video is one of the most preferred way audience can understand, enjoy and consume content or they can be effectively targeted and resonated with

Battle shifts to Content

• In these ecosystem wars, we are seeing swift transformations with vortex shifting rapidly
• The battles have moved from differentiating shiny hardware & designs to software, UI to User Experience now and we believe those will shift to the currency that maintains the flow and stickiness within the ecosystem i.e. content
• We have seen how different product categories have gone through and built sticky ecosystems around to succeed based on 'content', e.g. iPod (with iTunes music), Google (YouTube) to XBox (Gaming titles), Facebook (Social Content)

Google, Microsoft & Apple at Advantage & Will Jump in

• Video Content landscape has always been fragmented and its a zero-sum game, new entrants with engrossing content will take share away from others
• Ecosystem players such as Apple, Microsoft, Google and others developing their "own branded" exclusive video content or content platform will be the next battleground of differentiation
• These players have hundreds of millions in form of Installed Base of connected devices and users, and, it is very lucrative for them to develop their exclusive content to scale & capture eyeball share away from NetFlix, Hulu, HBO and others. (Big Kingdoms!!)
• Getting into this space will not only boost ecosystem lock-in but also provide opportunity to cash-in from advertising revenues, marketers will love the reach and quality of these ecosystems
• HTML5, various content compression and related analytics technologies will be also the key to win in this space. Keep an eye on future acquisitions in this space from these big ecosystem players

In summary, we believe the ecosystem battles will shift towards the emperor of content "video" to tap into the huge kingdom to increase stickiness, ecosystem lock-in, eye-ball share and newer adjacent revenue streams. Ecosystem leaders Google, Apple & Microsoft are well positioned in this space to capture lion share of video content market. Watch out!!

Video Content is King