According to a new report from Juniper Research, ad-funded MMS revenues are set to soar over the next five years with annual growth rates reaching 94%, with SMS and mobile email continuing to dominate the person-to-person (p2p) mobile messaging market.
The report, ‘Mobile Messaging & IP Evolution', found that the Far East & China would lead the global ad-funded MMS market by a considerable margin, followed by North America and Western Europe.
The number of brands using MMS as an advertising medium is growing rapidly, says Juniper, with push MMS and SMS being employed to great effect in both mature and emerging markets. Crucially, this has enabled network operators to support ad-funded voice and SMS tariffs, and combat falling ARPU, while providing brands with new advertising channels, says Juniper.
Other report findings from the Juniper Research report include:
– The number of mobile email users will climb by 21% to reach 1.1 billion in 2014.
– SMS' share of total global P2P mobile messaging revenues will decline by 18% over the forecast period.
Steve Reynolds, Chairman of the MDA said: "Despite the global economic meltdown, mobile messaging continues to grow significantly. This report provides valuable intelligence to empower mobile-messaging-centric businesses in developing future demand-based commercial strategies."
The influence of social networking and Web 2.0 applications has been significant on both operator and vendor strategies, says Juniper. RIM in particular, has broken new ground in the consumer market with the addition of custom-built social networking applications for Facebook and MySpace, plus AOL instant messaging and other applications – factors that combined to bring Juniper's Future Mobile Gold Award for Mobile Messaging to RIM.
"The inclusion of popular messaging and social networking applications has broadened its appeal and ensured the BlackBerry has maintained its position as a compelling mobile messaging device." said report author and Future Mobile Awards panel judge, Ian Chard.
Other mobile messaging vendors such as Acision, Airwide Solutions and Miyowa were noted for driving significant innovation, but the Silver Award for Mobile Messaging was given to SpinVox, for its ‘Voice-to-Text' messaging service.