The report said the market grew from $1 billion in 2006 to about $2 billion in 2008 and analysts expect it to almost double by 2015.
U.K.-based market research firm Juniper Research also attributes the growth of mobile adult services — which it predicts will rise from $2 billion in 2008 to about $5 billion in 2013 — to the rise of webcams of mobile devices.
In a Juniper study last year, author Dr. Windsor Holden expressed high expectations for mobile video chat.
"Those video chat services already deployed are showing quite remarkable levels both in terms of customer retention and average usage, with users regularly returning to chat to the same hostess and developing a virtual relationship with her,” Holden said. “With 3G penetration expected to exceed 25 percent in many developed markets by the end of 2008, there is a significant opportunity for service providers to launch and monetize live chat services."
An industry insider, a Britain webcam site owner Broadie Fry, said he credits the growth to the economic times.
"This is a safe alternative to becoming an escort or an adult model,” Fry said in the report. “There's total anonymity. Of course, the operators don't use their real names.”
