Submitted by Mike Grenville on Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:28

Global mobile data revenues from services other than SMS exceeded US$10 billion in 1Q07 according to Informa’s World Cellular Data Metrics (WCDM).

The total of US$11.3 billion compares with US$8.1 billion in 1Q06.

The figure means that nearly one third of mobile data revenues now come from non-SMS services, suggesting operators’ investments in advanced technologies are finally reaping rewards.

But this does not mean the end of the road for SMS. Worldwide SMS traffic was up year-on-year by around 50% to more than 620 billion messages in 1Q07 according WCDM. SMS revenues were up 23% over the same period, helping total data revenues to reach US$34.3 billion in the quarter, the highest ever. The higher increase in SMS traffic compared to revenue reflects lower SMS tariffs and the greater availability of bundled packages.

Out of 70 operators tracked in WCDM, the proportion of data revenues coming from non-SMS ranged vastly, from just 1% (Vodafone Egypt) to over 70% (KTF, Korea).