Worldwide revenues from SMS and MMS will reach $50 billion each in the next five years, says UK-based Portio Research.
In a new report entitled "Mobile Messaging Futures 2005 - 2010", Portio says SMS will remain the most widely used messaging format for some years, with around 2.38 trillion messages sent a year by 2010.
It notes that worldwide, SMS has emerged as the cheapest, quickest, easiest form of peer-to-peer mobile communication ever known and is still growing in all regions.
The report also outlines progress for other mobile messaging technologies, especially mobile e-mail and instant messaging, amid continued strong worldwide subscriber growth.
Portio forecasts that MMS revenues will grow to $50 billion by 2010, generating more revenue with considerably less traffic.
Slower growth is expected overall in other mobile messaging technologies such as e-mail, mobile instant messaging (MIM), push to talk and video messaging. MIM has a strong future in certain markets, particularly the US, where volumes are expected to pass SMS by 2009 or 2010.
The report states: "The industry must concentrate on increasing the use of premium MMS as a marketing tool and a distribution channel while promoting growth of cheap peer-to-peer picture messaging. When MMS becomes cheap, simple and compelling, traffic will grow and revenue will follow."
Portio says that with a large proportion of global mobile subscriber growth in the next five or six years being in low-income per-capita emerging markets, and fixed-mobile substitution back on the corporate agenda in the mature mobile markets, there seems to be plenty of life left in voice and SMS.
"No other non-verbal form of communication in the world is used by so many individuals and is experiencing such a rapid expansion of its user base," the report claims.
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