The volume of OTT messaging traffic will be twice that of person-to-person SMS by the end of the year, according to data collected by Informa Telecoms & Media.
Although there are far more SMS users globally, 3.5bn compared to around 586.3m OTT users at the end of 2012, each OTT user sends an average of 32.6 messages every day, while just five SMS messages are sent.
Last year, 19.1bn OTT messages were sent per day, with an average of 17.6bn SMS messages sent. Informa believes that by the end of 2013, 41bn messages will be sent every day using OTT providers, with an average of 19.5bn SMS messages sent.
OTT services have been adopted much more quickly than SMS was and this has impacted mobile operators’ revenue. Operators in Spain have revenues decline from €1.1bn in 2007 to €758.5m in 2011. But Informa says that SMS revenues globally will still increase through to 2016.
Brands go OTT? 
Asked whether commercial use of OTT apps is on the way, an Informa spokesperson, said: “Until there is universal penetration of smartphones and mobile broadband within a market that would support the development of an OTT-based service, companies – including brands and advertisers – are likely to remain more focussed on SMS-based services. This is for a number of reasons: a) reach b) low cost and c) ease of use.
“Even when a market reaches the stage where there is a high enough penetration of smartphones and mobile broadband to support commercial app-based messaging communications, one of the key inhibitors for the commercial use of OTT applications is that there are a number of these applications on the market.
“Organisations likely will not be able afford to develop and update services to address all of the different applications that their customers, employees or suppliers may be using, so they might choose to focus on one or two, which might again effectively limit the reach of the commercial service.”
Last month, Spanish police used WhatsApp to communicate while trying to catch a gang of jewellery thieves operating in a number of cities across the country.
