SMS will dominate the mobile marketing landscape for the next 10 years, before commercial mobile Instant Messaging supersedes it. Thats the view of Andrew Bud, Executive Chairman of mobile transaction network mBlox. Speaking exclusively to Mobile Marketing, Bud said:
“SMS is the best customer interaction medium on the planet. So you would think that every company that runs a call centre must have an SMS solution. But companies are very conservative about changing their customer interaction model, so we are only now starting to see the widespread use of SMS as a customer service and customer relationship channelThe growth is really going to come now, because people are comfortable with it, and applications are coming on line. I think we have 10 years on SMS, and when it does run its course, we will see SMS being supplanted by commercial mobile instant messaging. (IM). There are many hurdles to overcome, and will take maybe five years before mobile IM becomes a true complement to SMS, but I think it will come, and at that point, you will find subscribers dialoguing with brands in a way that is unknown today.”
Buds views may concern those keen to use the greater bandwidth delivered by 3G services to target 3G users with richer advertising content, but as one of the worlds largest bulk SMS handlers and mobile transaction processors, processing more than billion transactions each year, mBloxs views cant be ignored.

Read the interview here