Operators hail mobile messaging 2.0

Mobile email, music and multimedia messaging are predicted to soar in Europe as operators become more confident that such services can provide steady and sustained revenue growth.

A roundtable hosted by Airwide Solutions debated how mobile use has changed in recent years, particularly the differences between the developing and more developed parts of the world.

Jay Seaton, chief marketing officer at Airwide, said: "Mobile messaging 2.0 is the difference between network controlled messaging and user controlled messaging powered by technology that enables the user to dictate messaging options.

"Subscribers can configure mobile presence and availability, receive voicemails as text messages, archive important messages, filter out unwanted messages before they reach the handset and create customised auto-reply messages."

The panel also debated some of the key themes from the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, including advertising, payments and social networking.

"SMS for business-to-consumer purposes continues to be a runaway success worldwide," said Andrew Bud, vice chairman of the Mobile Entertainment Forum and executive chairman of mBlox.

"By 2011 we can see carrier revenues from all wholesale-enabling services more than doubling to $8bn if they replicate the successful wholesale business model of SMS."

Mike Short, chairman of the Mobile Data Association, and vice president of R&D at O2, believes that there is much more to be done in 21st century messaging.

Short highlighted CRM to enterprise messaging, screen interactivity, better memory stores of favourite messages, mobile marketing, personalised alert services, public sector services and charity text.

However, average revenue per user remains low, as does the per-minute cost of calls and services, leaving operators in a quandary over where to concentrate their efforts in terms of customer base.

Mobile spam was identified as a hot issue in China and will continue to do so over the next five years, according to the panel. Similarly the threat of mobile viruses also looks set to increase.

The Middle East was earmarked as having the greatest potential for growth in emerging services such as mobile instant messaging, email, videoconferencing and MMS.

Accelerated growth in the UK is expected in mobile versions of applications that are already firmly established. Mobile email is expected to double its share of the total market over the next five years.

Lord Digby Jones, Minister of State for Trade & Investment, said: " British firms in this business have to be at their creative and innovative best. The text message was created in Britain and the British public are always early adopters of technology.

"Now companies in the sector are innovating to include data messaging using picture and video. Companies in the UK are only able to innovate to this extent because of the world-class research being done in British universities and the highly-skilled workforce.

"All these factors make British firms fantastic commercial partners and will allow them to remain world leaders for many years to come."