Mobile Messaging Muscle

• Posted: Wednesday, October 18, 2006
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• Author: pradhana
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• Filed under: Instant Messaging, Market Survey, Mobile Content, Mobile Services, Mobile TV

Messaging is the least sexy, but most profitable, segment of the huge mobile data market.

While mobile carriers, music producers, television networks and equipment providers throw out a never-ending barrage of multimedia goodies to lure consumers into spending more add-on dollars, users seem content to just keep their heads down and tap out more messages.

"Marketers would do well to listen to what the messaging market is saying with its behavior rather than rushing headlong into new mobile media directions," says John Gauntt, senior analyst at eMarketer and the author of the new Mobile Message Marketing: Cash Not Flash report. "The explosive success of accidental consumer applications such as short messaging service (SMS) in contrast to industry-led multimedia messaging service (MMS) holds an important lesson — most consumers value mobile data for what it helps them do."

Mobile data services related to messaging — SMS, MMS, mobile e-mail and mobile instant messaging (MIM) — are the success stories of mobile data.

"While mobile TV, mobile music, mobile games and other multimedia applications seem compelling," says Mr. Gauntt, "outside of Japan and Korea and some leading European markets, these multimedia services barely rate in terms of generating hard cash revenues compared to messaging services, especially lowly text."

For mobile carriers, the continued growth of messaging (up 25% in text-saturated Great Britain in the last 12 months) has provided the bulk of mobile data revenues. According to the latest analyst forecasts, the global messaging market for SMS, MMS, MIM and mobile e-mail should reach $50 billion in 2006 and $100 billion by 2011.

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