Telemedia Month Newsletter April 2013

Page 1

Issue 39 • APRIL 2013

#SMS Chat apps slash MNO SMS traffic as customers move with times

THIS MONTH... News

The latest news from the industry, along with analysis of what that news means, including: • 200m smartphones shipped in Q12013, Samsung booms 3 • iTunes is 10: now music is almost totally digital 4 • Bauer Group signs Velti to make 43 UK radio stations interactive 5 • Luv2Chat shakes up ailing IVR chat business 6 • Both Interested brings Bitcoin to UK online dating 6 • 4G set to boost mobile shopping says IMRG study 7 • Less than 5% of firms have mobile strategy, says Netbiscuits 8

Analysis

research by informa for the Financial Times has found that SMS revenues are on the brink of terminal decline as OTT messaging services such as WhatsApp and iMessage, along with social media messaging services, take traffic away from operators at a now alarming rate. According to Informa’s research OTT messaging will double to more than 41billion messages per day being sent this way – more than twice the number of texts expected to be sent. This has massive implications for the mobile operators, which expect to generate $120billion this year from text messaging alone, says the reseach. Many internet-based applications offer voice chat as well as text-based messaging services, including video links, which is striking at the core of the telecoms industry. Pamela Clark-Dickson, senior analyst at Informa, said internet messaging was increasingly used as a substitute for SMS in a number of markets. This had “a significant impact on mobile operators’ traffic and revenues in some countries, including Spain, the Netherlands and South Korea”. For example, text revenues in Spain have fallen from €1.1bn in 2007 to €758.5 million in 2011 as traffic declined from 9.5 billion messages in 2007 to 7.4 billion in 2011. In the chat app market, start-ups such as WhatsApp, Viber and Kik are competing with services such as Apple’s iMessage, BlackBerry Messenger and Facebook’s Chat Heads. “There can be no denying that over the past few years we have seen consumer behaviour, expectations and overall perceptions of messaging evolve,” says J F Sullivan, CMO at messaging specialist Acision. “Interestingly, our own research unveiled similar findings, revealing that 80% of UK Smartphone owners are now using Over-the-Top (OTT) or Instant Messaging (IM) services, with 76% of these using both SMS and OTT/IM messaging services together. It appears then that we are today witnessing a nation of ‘eclectic communicators’ with over three quarters of all smartphone owners using multiple messaging services simultaneously each day, with 40% admitting to using them all the time.”

continued page 2>>>

Editorial Don’t kill SMS SMS is dying as consumers use more and more IM apps and OTT services. But it doesn’t have to be that way, believes Paul Skeldon 9 OPINION Misleading Marketing Digital marketing is all around us, but some unscrupulous affiliates are making the whole thing a bad experience. Can payments help, asks Rory Maguire? 11 ANALYSIS SMS Killer? As SMS hits the headlines with OTT services eroding its margins, Keith Mumford, director or product marketing and Kineto EMEA explains why it may be changing for good 12 ANALYSIS Getting connected With 4G coming online, are networks back in the game or they left it too late to beat off competition from Wifi and OTT services? Matthew Leach investigates 14

Directory

The leading industry directory of services 18

Latest news at www.telemedia-news.com Catch our blog at www.telemedia360.blogspot.com


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.
Telemedia Month Newsletter April 2013 by annika micheli - Issuu