SMS Revenues To Get Stratospheric

Written by Adam Gosling

Monday, 26 February 2007

If you have any doubt about where we are going with SMS consider this: In Asia alone, in the five minutes it takes to read this story (and then in every subsequent five minute period over the next six years) 2,267 people will have bought their first ever mobile phone, says Portio Research. As we have seen in 2006 the bulk of these handsets will be low cost devices that offer little more functionality than basic voice and SMS services. But these additional 1.4 Billion new mobile subscribers in Asia are enough to make SMS a great business to be in. Portio says SMS will continue to be the "star of the data services show" with traffic volumes and revenues that continue to confound predictions. Even factoring the declining prices of SMS, Portio says that SMS revenues are expected to reach a phenomenal US$67 Billion globally by 2012. Prices might be down but the number of messages is astronomically at an anticipated 3.7 trillion message a year. In the report, 'Mobile Messaging Futures 2007 - 2012' Portio delves into the future of SMS and other mobile messaging technologies such as instant messaging and mobile e-mail. But its SMS the researcher predicts will continue to steal the show. "If there was one message this report should get across it is this: SMS continues to be a phenomenal success as the cheapest, quickest and easiest to use form of peer-to-peer mobile communication," says the company. "Markets have continued to grow and greatly exceeded the predictions of similar research carried out in 2005. "SMS traffic has not flattened out in mature markets but continued to boom whilst the US market has grown much faster than expected. The SMS market despite declining prices continues to be fuelled by new subscribers. Eventually however, the report predicts that by 2011 mobile instant messaging (MIM) will statto make serious inroads into the SMS market especially in technologically mature markets such as North America. Operators, the report suggests, need to strike a balance between SMS and IM pricing in order to prevent the cannibalisation of SMS revenues in the future. 'Mobile Messaging Futures 2007 - 2012' provides detailed discussion of all mobile messaging technologies including SMS, MMS, MIM, E-mail, Videomail and Unified Messaging as well as business models, network technology impacts, value chain shifts and advice for operators backedby a wealth of charts and statistics. www.portioresearch.com Related news items Tiny Rugged UMPC WIth Vista -10/10/2007 Consumers Want FMC: Companies Don't See The Benefit -02/10/2007 Nokia Buys Map Company For US$8 Billion -02/10/2007 Seven In Unwired Takeover Bid -26/09/2007 Ultra-Mobile Sales Ready To Rocket -16/09/2007 Newer news items Mobile, Not VoIP The Big Growth Area For Voice -16/03/2007 Opera Community On T-Mobile -15/03/2007 3 Could Take In More Cash From NZ -06/03/2007 NZ Telcos Mislead With Marketing -02/03/2007 Mobile Rates Cut By 40% -26/02/2007 Older news items Unwired Revenue Up 46% -21/02/2007 ACCC Sets Interim Mobile Prices -18/02/2007 Telstra Behind Schedule On CDMA Migration -12/02/2007 3 Hits 3.6Mbps In Sydney -31/01/2007 Optus Goes Ahead With Rural 3G -29/01/2007 Tag This Now: