Instant Messaging and e-mail are gaining popularity

Nov 26, 2009 13:49 GMT  ·  By

Mobile voice services and Short Messaging Services (SMSs) seem to be on an ascending trend nowadays, as SMSs are expected to reach a number of 1.9 trillion this year in Asia/Pacific and Japan. According to a recent report from Gartner Inc., there has been a 15.5-percent increase in SMSs since 2008 and the volume of messages is predicted to reach over 2.1 trillion next year, marking a 12.7-percent growth compared with 2009.

"Strong organic growth continues in Asia's developing markets, with marginal subscribers turning to low-cost messaging as an entry-level service," Madhusudan Gupta, senior research analyst at Gartner, said. "In the mature markets of the Asia/Pacific region, SMS has seen sustained healthy growth as a result of steady price declines and increasingly generous SMS and data bundles."

According to the research firm, the increase in messaging revenues is mainly caused by new customers from the emerging markets. The financial crisis had little impact on the Asia/Pacific mobile messaging forecasts for 2009. Studies predict that, even if the messaging traffic increases in 2010, it will not be as high compared with the previous years, but there will still be double-digit-percentage rises.

Due to low prices and the increasing number of pictures being uploaded on social-networking sites, Multimedia Messaging Services (MMSs) traffic experienced a significant rise throughout 2008. In 2013, Indian Mobile Messaging capacities are expected to reach the 19.6-billion-message mark.

"'Big bucket' or large inclusive SMS and MMS bundles will also increase traffic by lowering the price barriers to usage," Mr. Gupta added. "At the same time, competition and network efficiencies will continue to drive down the retail price of SMS and MMS for consumers. Application traffic will continue to support growth, especially in the mature markets."

However, because of the saturation of mobile markets, SMS volumes are expected to grow slower than in the previous years. Another reason for this state of facts is the emergence of other types of messaging like mobile e-mails and instant messaging, which are slowly gaining popularity.