Although most mobile operators offer a wide selection of content for the mobile phone to their customers, they do not control the market for mobile content.

ABI Research have conducted a survey called "Mobile Content Survey Results" examining where from consumers get their mobile content and results show, that there is a mix of sources and content. This mix consists of products from the consumers' carrier,various web services and content sideloaded onto the mobile.

For example the survey shows that although mobile consumers are twice as likely to download ringtones from their carriers than from e.g. a web service, they are more likely to download video content from Youtube than from their own carrier.

For 48% of the asked consumers, music on the mobile comes from songs ripped from CD's and then sideloaded onto the phone, while only 35% came from services provided by the carriers themselves. Other results showed that 6 out of 10 consumers only play the games pre-loaded onto the phone from the time of purchased - and that those who watch videos using their mobile, was in a one-third split between watching from websites like YouTube, using services from their own carriers and videoes they sideload them selves.

"We expect to see increased content acquisition directly to the phone from the Web. And despite a loosening of control over content delivery to consumers, we believe the carriers will ultimately benefit as they open up their networks and handset platforms and look into taking advantage of increased advertising-supported content delivery," says Michael Wolf, research director at ABI.