24/01/2007 ( Source: www.3GNewsroom.com )

Mobile Messaging to Retain its Crown for Next Five Years at Least

Despite the proliferation of new multimedia services, messaging will remain the major mobile data money-spinner for European operators over the next five years, according to new figures from Jupiter Research. The US-based research company projects that as much as 72% of revenues from premium wireless services will still come from messaging in 2011.

The market analysts report in their European Mobile Forecasts to 2011 that they believe the total market for mobile content, services and messaging revenues in Europe will grow from £14.4 billion in 2006 to £18.2 billion in 2011.

Jupiter believes that messaging services in general will continue to dominate operators' revenues with increases in multimedia messaging and instant messaging making up for any fall off in revenues from SMS revenues. Delivery of other content such as mobile TV, music and games, are also tipped to grow impressively. In total, Jupiter says that content and services will grow strongly from £1.4 billion at the end of 2006 to £5.2 billion in 2011.

On the down side for operators, Jupiter predicts that the market for paid-for mobile services will not reach mass market status, i.e. over 50% penetration by 2011. Some services will get there before others, Jupiter Research claimed, but only if changes in the infrastructure are made.

According to a statement from Jupiter "Mobile operators and new entrants in the mobile space must leverage the peer-to-peer nature of a personal communications platform to create a new form of content creation and consumption."