Submitted by Mike Grenville on Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:12

P2P mobile messaging to reach $106bn by 2014, but revenues to decline in some sectors, warns Juniper Research.

Mobile messaging revenues are set for measured growth over the next five years, as market forces take effect. SMS, MMS, mobile email and IM traffic volumes will continue their inexorable rise, but the IP evolution is resulting in disruptive business models, increased competition from the Web and commoditisation of established services.

According to a new report from Juniper Research, the move from per-transaction to per-month billing models incorporating up to unlimited data and messaging bundles will see total P2P revenues in Western and Eastern Europe post decline. This will be balanced to some extent by a healthy rise in revenues in developing markets, with these revenues greatest in the Africa & Middle East, Indian Sub-Continent and South America regions.

Although the drop in total messaging revenues will be around 3% in western Europe, it will maintain position as largest market over forecast period. This drop in revenues will also be partly compensated with a growth in ad-funded tariffs.

Meanwhile, Web-based communities continue to integrate new messaging mediums, which could well impact MNO revenues in the increasingly open mobile Web browsing environment.

“For MNOs, mobile messaging investment is becoming a more considered decision. But mature services such as SMS will remain core revenue generators in the current economic environment, given that messaging is an economical method of P2P communication,” comments Ian Chard, Juniper Research Analyst and author of the report ‘Mobile Messaging & IP Evolution: Players, Strategies & Forecasts 2009-2014.

The report found that Smartphone users in particular, will continue to drive high usage levels, while there is also a significant opportunity in using mobile messaging mediums to interconnect the disparate digital communities evolving around gaming, social networking and VoIP.