YNOT – Revenues from mobile adult content and services are expected to reach $2.8 billion by 2015, driven primarily by video-chat and subscription-based services, according to a report published Thursday by UK-based Juniper Research.The increase — from $1.7 billion in 2009 — is expected despite the proliferation of free content available via tube and thumbnail gallery sites, which has depressed revenues in Western Europe.

Video-chat service providers have reported a combination of high retention rates and very high average revenue per user, with services often billed at several dollars per minute. Thus, even with a comparatively low user base, service providers can generate extremely strong return on investment.

Meanwhile, the mobile adult industry is experiencing a transition from pay-per-download to subscription models as direct-to-consumer, rather than on-deck, adult sites gain traction and traffic by offering a wide range of specialized niche content.

However, the mobile adult strategies report found that while the rise in consumer smartphone adoption has led to a dramatic upsurge in mobile traffic to leading adult websites, only now are sites beginning to monetize the traffic by offering mobile-optimized content and billing mechanisms. Furthermore, the transition from “walled garden” to open internet has demonstrated a serious effect on on-portal adult revenues in more mature markets.

“In Western Europe, adult areas on operator portals were relatively successful, as were off-portal services billed via [premium SMS],” noted report author Dr. Windsor Holden. “As people have increasingly surfed the internet via the mobile, they’re discovering a wealth of free content — much of it not optimized for the mobile experience, but still more than sufficient for casual users.”

A mobile adult video whitepaper is available for download from JuniperResearch.com, together with additional details about the study “Mobile Adult Strategies: Downloads, Video Chat, Apps & Messaging 2010-2015.”