KPMG Survey: Mobile Overtakes Social Media as Revenue Growth

By Michael Foster, Big4.com Blogger

A new survey by KPMG concludes that several media and telecommunications executives expect the transition to digital platforms to drive revenue growth more than any other factor over the next one to three years.

The survey of America-based media and telecommunications companies asked what they expected to drive revenue from now to 2015. Application and content sales over smartphones, tablets, and mobile devices was seen as a huge growth driver, while social media fell out of focus.

The survey suggests that industry executives expect a “transformational change” in the sector, according to Paul Wissman, KPMG National Sector Leader for Media and Telecommunications.”The findings show that media and telecommunications executives believe in significant digital and mobile opportunity, and expect their companies to aggressively pursue these markets,” he said in a press release.

The survey’s results are a contrast from last year, when social media was a bigger focus. “These survey results are quite a switch from a year ago when applications and content sales over smartphones, and tablets, ranked 10th and 8th respectively on the projected list of the biggest revenue drivers,” he said.  And social media platforms, online advertising, and increased Internet access speeds and availability were among the projected top four in the 2011 survey, yet ranked between 4th and 8th in this year’s survey.”

The KPMG Media and Telecommunications Industry Business Outlook Survey was conducted over the summer and is expected to be released on the Big4 firm’s website.