Messaging company Acision has forecast mobile messaging revenues of $165 billion (84 billion) globally by 2011, 42% higher than Ovums previous prediction of $116 billion by this date.
Acision, which powers half of all the worlds text and multimedia messages, has explained its optimism with a five-step action plan that it says operators are already embarking upon in pursuit of messaging revenues. Acision believes the five steps have the capability to double messaging revenues for operators in the next four years. They are:
Personalising the messaging experience with added functionality, relevant to specific consumer and enterprise segments
Using partnerships and multi-play strategies to extend mobile messaging to the fixed environment, using converged messaging
Subsidising mobile Internet revenues through messaging integration with interactive web applications such as Facebook and eBay
Mobilising enterprise applications
Leveraging the mobile marketing opportunities offered by the reach of messaging platforms
Acision notes that since its inception 15 years ago, mobile messaging has delivered a 6,000% return on investment, but adds that the growth phase is not yet over, with markets such as India, North America and China seeing phenomenal traffic increases. Even within the more mature markets of Western Europe and South East Asia, says Acision, messaging still has huge growth potential.
SMS has achieved more than anyone imagined it would 15 years ago, but speculation that messaging has reached its peak ignores much of todays market dynamic, says Acision CEO, Rory Buckley. Peer-to-peer communication is showing no sign of stalling or declining, and already in South East Asia, operators efforts to differentiate their services by adding features such as out-of-office and blacklisting are proving popular with subscribers. However, it is with application-to-peer and peer-to-application messaging that the wider opportunities lie. We believe that capitalising on the opportunities afforded by web applications as Facebook (essentially an enormous web-based multimedia messaging environment) and effectively harnessing mobile marketing will enable operators to double mobile messaging revenues by 2011.