Airwide Solutions predicts mobile messaging trends

Mobile messaging provider Airwide Solutions has presented the results of a global report into mobile messaging trends at a roundtable event at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

The report revealed several important trends.

Asia continues to demonstrate the strongest overall growth opportunity.

However, ARPU remains low as does the per-minute cost of calls and services, leaving operators in a quandary over where to concentrate their efforts in terms of customer base.

Mobile spam has been identified as a hot issue in China and will continue as such over the next five years.

Similarly the threat of mobile viruses also looks set to increase.

The Middle East illustrates the greatest potential for growth of emerging services such as mobile IM, email, videoconferencing and MMS.

Europe sees mobile email, mobile music and MMS more ingrained services than many places in the world and there is growing confidence among operators that these services can provide a steady and sustained growth in revenues.

In the United Kingdom, accelerated growth is expected in mobile versions of applications that are already firmly established.

Mobile email is expected to double its share of the total market over the next five years.

Present at the roundtable were Jay Seaton, CMO of Airwide Solutions; Mike Short, Chairman of the MDA and VP of Research and Development at O2; Andrew Bud, Vice Chair of the Mobile Entertainment Forum and Executive Chairman of mBlox; John Darnbrough, Market Development Manager at the GSMA; Graham Rivers, CEO of WIN; Mark Newman, Chief Research Officer of Informa; Michele Scanlon, Founder of Green Giraffe Consulting, and Paul Ruppert, Founder of Global Point View and contributor to industry blog Mobile Messaging 2.0.

The roundtable sparked an interesting debate about how mobile use across the world has changed over the last few years.

The debate discussed the differences in mobile phone use between the developing and more developed parts of the world and helped highlight the tremendous opportunities that lie ahead for mobile operators worldwide.

The panel also debated some of the key themes from Mobile World Congress including mobile advertising, mobile payments and social networking.

Jay Seaton, CMO of Airwide Solutions, said: "As a global pioneer in mobile messaging, we wanted to provide the industry with a snapshot of 'what's hot' and 'what's not' in mobile messaging across some of the most interesting and active regions around the world.

"Developing the mobile messaging barometer has helped show that the differences in mobile phone use between the developed and more developing areas of the worlds are not about demand but rather about supply.

"With the Philippines alone sending over 400 million text messages each day, the opportunities for operators to invest in data services across the world are substantial.

"However, in order to do this in the most effective way, we believe that the key to success is letting subscribers decide how to manage their own messaging experience is the way forward".

He continued: "The industry is calling it Mobile Messaging 2.0 - it's the difference between network controlled messaging and user controlled messaging, powered by technology that enables the user to dictate messaging options.

"Subscribers can configure mobile presence and availability, receive voicemails as text messages and can archive important messages, filter out unwanted messages before they reach the handset and create customised auto-reply messages.

"However, Mobile Messaging 2.0 does not drive benefit only for subscribers: it also incorporates an emerging set of principles that will guide operators in the development of next generation mobile messaging networks".

Andrew Bud, Vice Chair of the Mobile Entertainment Forum and Executive Chairman of mBlox, commented: "SMS used for business-to-consumer purposes continues to be a runaway success worldwide: to illustrate this, in 2007, mBlox processed over 2 billion application-to-person transactions and grew by over 40 per cent.

"By 2011 we can see carrier revenues from all wholesale enabling services more than doubling to $8bn, if they replicate SMS' successful wholesale business model.

"At Mobile World Congress, the biggest theme was the huge opportunity for the entire industry in the emerging markets, where applications like mobile banking are already beginning to drive the mobile transactions business.

"With a market of over 3 billion consumers to reach and serve, there is a lot to be excited about".

Mike Short, Chairman of the MDA and VP of Research and Development at O2, commented: "Text - we've only just begun; there remains much more to be done in 21st century messaging from CRM to Enterprise Messaging, from screen interactivity to better memory stores of your favourite messages from mobile marketing to personalised alert services, from public sector services to charity text".

Lord Digby Jones, Minister of State for Trade and Investment, said: "This report shows the strength and energy of the ICT sector in the UK.

British firms in this business have to be at their creative and innovative best.

"The text message was created in Britain and the British public are always early adopters of technology.

"There were a record number of text messages sent in the UK last year; now companies in the sector are innovating to include data messaging using picture and video.

"Once again British consumers are taking up the technology before many other markets around the world.

"Companies in the UK are only able to innovate to this extent because of the world-class research being done in British universities and the highly-skilled workforce.

"All these factors make British firms fantastic commercial partners and will allow them to remain world-leaders for many years to come".

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