Global SMS revenue at $102 bn: report

According to a report on mobile Messaging by Ireland-based international market research firm Research and Markets, the worldwide mobile messaging market was worth $150 billion in 2009, and this figure will race to $233 billion by the end of 2014.
According to the’ Mobile Messaging Futures 2010-2014′ report, among the four popular mobile messaging services – SMS, MMS, mobile e-mail and mobile IM (instant messaging) – SMS yielded the highest revenue for operators in 2009 and will continue to do so. In 2014, the firm predicts that SMS will generate more revenue than the collective revenue of the other three services.
In 2009, the worldwide SMS revenue stood at $ 102 billion and this is expected to grow to over $109 billion by end of 2010. Annual worldwide SMS traffic volumes rose to nearly 5.5 trillion in 2009, and will go to 6.6 trillion in 2010.
Despite MMS not picking up as expected, the report states MMS remains the second most successful non-voice mobile service in the world after SMS. MMS revenues will reach $31.5 billion by end of 2010. In 2009, worldwide MMS revenue saw a year-on-year increase of over 22 percent, and worldwide MMS traffic in 2009 achieved a year-on-year growth of 48 per cent.
The report finds that the worldwide mobile e-mail user base stood at 330.5 million at the end of 2009 – an increase of 34.6 percent from 2008 – and will grow to nearly 3.5 times its current size by end-2014. “While growth in mobile e-mail revenue is not expected to keep pace with user base growth, worldwide mobile e-mail revenue will still more than double from (last year’s) $17.3 billion to nearly $40 billion by end-2014,” states a company release.
In 2009, the worldwide mobile IM user base stood at 191 million and this is forecasted to grow five-fold to an 955 million users in 2014. According to the report, worldwide mobile IM revenues will multiply four-fold from $ 4.3 billion in 2009 to $18 billion by end of 2014.