MMS: revenue at US$4.7 billion.
Picture messaging is a flop, according to the Economist article, "Lack of text appeal" (August 5, 2006, p. 56). The flop is estimated to be worth US$4.7b in 2005 according to Pyramid Research, growing to US$9.4b by 2010. "Less than expected, but still not be be sniffed at--except that texting brought in US$49.4 billion last year..."
The comparison to SMS usage is highlighted with a graph showing messages sent per subscriber for selected operators. The peak for picture messages is just over 6, and for text messaging it's over 300. The reason for the disparity could be down to image quality, difficulty in usage, slow transfer rate, and cost. Operators have made progress on improving connectivity between networks, but have moved on to promoting music downloads and mobile TV.
The article goes on to anticipate an MMS replacement: "And as internet standards permeate further into mobile phones, people may start sending photos to and fro using e-mail instead. In Japan and South Korea, they already have."
One advantage MMS does have over e-mail is there's a built in charging mechanism for businesses, something that is still very hard to do with e-mail.
<< Home