The car is becoming the next major battleground for digital media companies

People spend an average of 6.5 hours per week in their cars, and as dashboards become digital platforms it's creating a massive new market for carmakers, digital-media companies, and even marketers. Revenue from connected services are expected to top $152 billion by 2020.

Carmakers are offering a selection of features in their connected cars, with a special focus on entertainment apps and safety-management features.

In a recent report from BI Intelligence, we look at revenue from connected-car internet services, consumer attitudes to these services and how they will pay for them (including getting ads in return for free content), and the potential for self-driving cars.

The report serves as a companion to our connected-car market forecast report.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Connected-safety features bring in the most revenue of all of today's connected-car services, at $13 billion. But safety will lose its spot as the top revenue stream to driver-assistance in 2017. Connected-safety features will bring in $44 billion in 2020. These connections include alerting customers of road conditions, such as severe weather or an approaching hazard, as well as collision-avoidance.
• Entertainment is one of the most popular features available for the connected car, but it is not a major revenue driver. The category will account for only $13 billion in revenue in 2020. Entertainment features include integrations with apps such as Pandora, Yelp, and Facebook.
• But there's still a ways to go before mainstream consumers really understand how they can benefit from the connected car. About 80% of consumers have either never heard of connected cars or are unsure what the term refers to.
• People who actually use connected car services are satisfied with them. About half of those who have a connected car actually use the car's connected features, and those who do use many of these features shows high levels of satisfaction with them.
• Consumers are pretty split on how they want to pay for these services. 25% of global consumers would be willing to receive in-car advertising if it meant they got free basic services in exchange. This means marketers are likely to have a big opportunity to tap into the connected-car market.

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