Crumb competition

A wave of cell phone startups, hoping to attract users to television, music and other premium services, are floundering as they fight over a thin slice of the U.S. market, a report said on Tuesday.

About 30 wireless operators and hundreds of related wireless technology firms have been launched in the past four years, but many are struggling and face losses, The Wall Street Journal said.

In the past 16 months, startup cellular carriers raised at least $1 billion, according to Rutberg & Co., a San Francisco investment bank, the newspaper said. But only 1 percent of cell phone users regularly use their phones to watch videos, even as the number of U.S. cell phone users has doubled over the past six years to 215 million, the paper said.

Venture capitalists and others remain hopeful that the new-media offerings, which have proved popular in Asia, will be equally popular in the United States, the Journal said.