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Submitted by Mike Grenville on Wed, 19 Jan 2005 22:11 |
There were 228 million premium rate MO text messages sent in France in 2004 - up 66% on 2003
Premium rate text messaging was introduced in France in October 2002 and until now has only offered Mobile Originated (MO). Called SMS+, the operators in France ( Bouygues Telecom, Orange France and SFR)joined together and set up an organisation to offer a seamless service with a common set of short codes and tarrifs, although to use a code suppliers must sign an Agreement with all three mobile operators separately.
At the end of 2004 there are 500 SMS+ numbers issued (up 48% on 2003) of which 350 are in active use - the rest being prepared for service and in development.
The monthly average is 19 million SMS-MO (up from 11.450 million in 2003), adding up to a total of 228 million in 2004 up from 137 million in 2003.
Speaking at the IBC conference in London Response TV, Michele Brual, Media Account Manager, Orange France said that "depending on what shows are being broadcast, TV and radio generates 15-20% of SMS+ traffic."
Brual said that 56% of SMS+ is used for downloads such as ringtones; 35% event voting; 8% for access to web poages and 2% for information services.
The revenue split between the mobile operator and the content owner is 58-75% to the content owner which is among the more positive rates in Europe.
There 5 bands available ranging from free up to 1.5 euros with a mximum of 3 euros for any one purchase.
Text Totals
France has a population of 62 million people and 42 million mobile phone subscribers. Of those about 24 million are regular texters. In 2003 there were 8 billion P2P SMS sent in France which works out at about 20 sms per user a month.
www.smsplus.org
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