Global Mobile Messaging Trends and Africa

Mobile messaging has gone from a virtuallynonexistent form of communication 15 years ago to a $100 billion enterprise in 2010. Mobile messaging includes; text messaging (SMS), picture messaging (MMS), mobile email and instant messaging (IM). In 2010 the total worldwide revenue for mobile phone usage, including phone calls and all forms of messaging, totaled $1 trillion. Of that trillion, mobile messaging accounted for $179.2 billion.

According to John White, Business Development Manager with Portio Research, there were 6.9 trillion SMS messages sent worldwide in 2010, amounting to $114.6 billion in revenue. There were 3.9 trillion messages sent in 2008 and White estimates that 11.6 trillion will be sent in 2015. SMS are sent so regularly that they rank second to standard email as the most widely used form of nonverbal communication. MMS ranks third on that list with 248 billion pictures being shared globally via mobile phones last year.

There are 4 billion people worldwide who are using mobile devices and 3.5 billion of them use SMS regularly. It is estimated that use of SMS will hit its peak in North America and most of Europe by 2015 as new technologies are developed and another trend takes over. John White predicts that as SMS and MMS start to fade, mobile email and IM will emerge as the major players in nonverbal communications. Mobile email and IM currently account for the smallest percent of mobile messaging usage today. In 2010 mobile email grossed $25.4 billion while IM accounted for $6.8 billion in sales. By 2015 those numbers are expected to climb to $82.6 billion and $31.2 billion respectively.

The reason that texting is so profitable right now is because you can text on even the most basic phones, it is billed cheaply and is easy to understand. Mobile email and IM require more expensive phones and the plans themselves cost more.

White estimates that in the year 2015 SMS alone will account for $159 billion in worldwide sales. And while many predict a decline in SMS usage in the US and most of Europe shortly after this plateau, usage is expected to see continued growth in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia for at least another decade after that. Right now SMS is growing faster in Africa than anywhere else.

Africa as a continent may be arriving late to the party when it comes to SMS, but individual countries like South Africa have been trendsetters. The first fully operational 3G network in the world was established in South Africa along with the first commercial mobile TV service. Africa is a very diverse continent because while some areas are at the forefront of technology, others have some of the lowest literacy and poverty rates in the world. John White says, “Of all the regions we look at in our report Africa holds the most promise in terms of the largest as yet untapped potential. We see Africa, as a continent, breaking the 80% penetration mark sometime in 2019. By the end of the decade there will be eight mobile phones for every 10 people on the continent. “

There were 559.9 million mobile subscribers in Africa in 2010 and by 2015 that number is expected to jump to 897.4 million, by 2020 they will pass 1 billion mark. This is not just good news for phone companies and investors, but for the local citizens as well. According to White, “Mobile communications are fundamental in helping to grow economies. They are right at the forefront of boosting economic development.” The example that White gives involves a farmer from a rural area who has to make a long distance commute to sell his goods. Without mobile communication the farmer runs the risk or arriving to market with the same products as other farmers, over saturating the market. This causes the farmer to have to sell his goods at a lower price and potentially have a surplus that may go to waste. With mobile communication the farmers can coordinate what to bring to market on a given day and everyone can get top dollar for their goods.

Developed nations, like most of Western Europe and the US, have gone through a technological evolution from fixed phones to dial-up networks then cable internet, high speed, 3G and now 4G. Other nations that haven’t gone through these progressions, like parts of Africa, will leap frog over the first few steps and move straight into high speed mobile networks. They will potentially go from rotary phones to smart phones. Helping out this cause, companies like Google are selling low priced smart phones to developing nations where the larger cities are already set up for the population to start using 3G technology. According to White, “For companies looking for that last great bastion of growth in the mobile space, Africa is the place to be over the next decade. Nowhere else still holds the offer of that much growth.”

Source: http://www.africagoodnews.com/infrastructure/ict/2684-global-mobile-messaging-trends-and-africa.html by Africa Good News Editor on 3rd August 2011

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