Africa, Asia lead 'mobile money' boom

Still thinking if you're ready to tap into the mobile world? Think no more now and go for it! You'd be amazed by the positive impacts of SMS marketing.

 

AFP - Africa and Asia are leading a global boom in the use of "mobile money" as millions turn to their mobile phones instead of coughing up cash or handing over credit cards.

In 2012, more than 30 million people were actively using mobiles to make payments, according to an industry study released Wednesday at the world's biggest mobile fair held from February 25-28 in Barcelona, Spain.

The study by the mobile operators' industry association, GSMA, found there were more mobile money accounts than traditional bank accounts in Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania and Uganda.

In a single month, June 2012, more than 30 million people worldwide undertook 224.2 million transactions totalling $4.6 billion (3.5 billion euros), said the report, based on a worldwide survey.

The pace of activity exceeded the 196.3 million transactions performed by PayPal customers on average each month in the third quarter of 2012, it said.

Providers offered 150 mobile money services for people without banks, 41 of which were launched in 2012.

There were 56.9 million registered mobile money customers in sub-Saharan Africa, the study said. In June 2012, there were twice as many mobile money users as Facebook users in the region.

Mobile money's success is based on the fact that the number of mobile phone owners far exceeds the number of people with bank accounts. Sending money can be as simple as sending an SMS text message.

In Indonesia, mobile phone penetration is 106 percent, meaning there is more than one phone for each person in the population, while only 20 percent of the population holds a bank account.

According to Fundamo, an offshoot of global payments giant Visa, some 1.7 billion people worldwide have a mobile device but no bank account and are "economically active".

Originally dominated by banks, newcomers including mobile operators have been lured to the market, notably Safaricom's M-PESA service, which launched in Kenya in 2007 and now claims 15 million users.

The M-PESA service has a network of 50,000 agents including shopkeepers, allowing a city worker for example send to money home to a remote village or to put money aside in savings without opening a bank account.

In September 2012, 19.3 million people in Kenya were signed up to mobile money services, with nearly two billion euros deposited, according to the Kenyan telecommunications regulator CCK.

"The mobile money transfer service has become a key payments and transaction tool, mainly due to its easy use of applications, convenience and low cost value propositions," CCK said.

M-PESA, also present in Afghanistan, South Africa, India and Tanzania, now faces competition in Kenya from rivals including Orange Money provided by France Telecom offshoot Telkom Kenya, Paga, Airtel Money owned by Airtel Kenya and yuMobile offered by Essar Telekom.

Aletha Ling, chief operating officer at Fundamo, said the sector's future growth would depend on the players reaching a certain scale and on the various standards being able to work together.

With its "Visa Mobile Manage Service", Fundamo lets banks or telecommunication operators offer mobile money to customers without having to develop their own technology, she said.

"We think it's going to be an acceleration point," Ling said, noting that the company had recently signed deals with one bank in India and two others in Rwanda.

Are you tempted to try SMS service yourself? Contact us at sales@moceansms.com or +603 8996 4780.

Source: on 5 March 2013 

China’s SMS Volume Reaches 897.31 Billion, An Increase Of About Mere 2.1%

According to the recent statistics provided by the Ministry of Industry 2012, the mobile SMS Volume in the China has reached 897.31 billion, an increase of about 2.1% while the country’s mobile phone users increased by 11% last year calculating the country’s 2012 per capita sent down by about 9%, Sina Tech reports.

The statistics states that SMS amount reached last year 897.31 billion, but MMS volume reached 69.67 billion, an increase of 16.2% with the net increase of 64 million people in 2012 the number of mobile phone users reached 420 million, accounting for 74.5% of the total number of internet users, the rural netizens net increase of 20 million people, 156 million people.

Online shopping a net increase of 48 million users, with a total size of 242 million while the microblogging users a net increase of 059 million, with a total size of 309 million. The statistics further revealed that the non-voice revenue was 532.21 billion yuan, an increase of 16.9% while the voice business revenues of 544.09 billion yuan.

Source: By Karan Chopra on 28th January 2013

5 Reasons SMS Is Here to Stay

SMS remains the most popular two-way communications platform on the planet. In most cases, it's inexpensive, casual, and discreet for users. It also represents one of the more profitable features offered by mobile network operators. And while SMS does face an increasingly fractured market, largely from the growth of messaging apps, it's not going anywhere anytime soon. Here are five reasons why:

1. SMS IS GROWING, NOT SHRINKING

Indeed, SMS is continuing to grow at an incredible rate globally. In 2011, more than 7.8 trillion SMS were sent worldwide. That vastly outpaces every other messaging platform combined. Over-the-top (OTT) messaging (instant messaging platforms like WhatsApp, iMessenger, BlackBerry Messenger, etc., also known as application-to-person) represent 3.5 trillion messages, combined. Multimedia messaging service (MMS) adds another 200 billion. The rate at which SMS are sent is increasing, and is expected to increase each year at least through 2016, according to several research firms.

2. SMS IS A MAJOR REVENUE DRIVER FOR MOBILE NETWORK OPERATORS WORLDWIDE

SMS represents 63.5% of mobile messaging revenue globally. And it represents somewhere around 10% of an average operator's revenue streams. I have a hard time believing MNOs won't think of ways to add value to SMS, or reduce the cost enough that it still makes sense for consumers.

In fact, there are multiple examples of them taking this step. For instance, SMS sent via first delivery attempt mechanism can potentially save money on 80%-90% of text messages. Clever bundling can also drive revenue: Here in the United States, we bundle SMS with our calling plans, meaning there's no ceiling to how many messages a given subscriber sends in a month on his or her plan. What's the disincentive to use SMS?

3. SMS IS PLATFORM AGNOSTIC AND HIGHLY RELIABLE

I can (and do) use iMessage with friends who also have iPhones. But what about friends who have Android-based mobiles? Colleagues whose businesses use BlackBerry devices? My mother, who uses a feature phone? To reach them, SMS is the most reliable option. This is due to the simple reason that it's hard-coded into the global mobile infrastructure, requiring distribution across all phones and carriers.

What's more is that I find iMessage and other chat applications to be unreliable. SMS, on the other hand, works even in extremely resource-limited conditions, including lack of Internet access and even moments of cell tower traffic congestion. For example, in emergencies, texts have a higher chance of reaching people than other forms of communication. This level of low-resource ubiquity is unmatched in the global communications infrastructure.

4. INCREASING USE IN BUSINESS, GOVERNMENT AND NON-PROFIT SECTORS

SMS is seeing a dramatic increase as a tool for businesses, governments and non-profits to interact with large populations. For example, Detroit recently introduced a Text-My-Bus program that allows people using public transport to learn when the next bus is arriving at a given stop. Businesses are increasingly looking to SMS as an opportunity for advertising special prices or events to clients. UPS, for example, uses SMS to notify clients as to the progress of their package deliveries. And non-profits are increasingly participating in text-to-donate programs, where donors can send a brief message to a short phone number and a small donation is added to a cell phone bill. Most famously, the American Red Cross raised more than $43 million with its text-to-donate campaign following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

I suspect they choose SMS over a messaging service largely because user adoption rates are so high -- see my previous point about SMS being platform agnostic. With so many mobile phones in circulation, there's only one global messaging platform at the moment. For people wanting to reach a large audience via a convenient messaging feature, SMS is the only real option. As these services gain more traction, people will continue to interact with them via SMS.

5. CHAT IS ATTEMPTING TO EMULATE SMS SUCCESS

Many analysts see built-in messenger apps, such as iMessage, WhatsApp, Mxit and others as a threat to SMS. These apps operate on a user's data plan, rather than through the SMS protocol. The argument follows that in cases where data plans are cheaper than SMS plans, users will choose the least cost route, thus supplanting SMS as the most popular platform. To be fair, we've seen this happen in a few places. Hong Kong, Australia, and Finland have seen drops in SMS usage. In the U.S., SMS usage levelled off in 2011 for the first time. But a dip in usage does not translate to an evaporation of an entire platform. Indeed, SMS is still the most popular platform in the U.S., despite the relative ubiquity of iMessage, Blackberry Messenger, and Facebook chat.

Portio Research takes this argument a step further, suggesting that messaging apps may only be an addition to an increasingly fragmented market, rather than being an SMS killer:

Does a boost to one messaging type have to equate to a usage drop in another? Does it have to mean cannibalization of SMS? What about synergy? Side by side traffic growth? And what of the other messaging mediums of MMS, mobile e-mail, and mobile IM? After all, while messaging users love to communicate seamlessly, popular modes of communications do vary - and maybe OTT isn't a replacement, but rather just one more segment of the messaging mix.

In an increasingly device-rich society, with wild differences in access to infrastructure and technologies of all kinds between the very poor and even the moderately well-off, multi-channel communications are critical if service providers and businesses are to engage effectively with everyone in a community, all of the time. Each platform and channel of communication has trade-offs, and as we've argued elsewhere, your choice of platform not only presents opportunities -- to sharing video, or messaging more cheaply across cell data -- but can close doors to those without the kit or the credit to access them. Multi-channel approaches, such as the Praekelt Foundation's Young Africa Live, which combines SMS with feature- and smartphone apps and a website, offer the broadest possible number of options for individuals to engage with its message. Despite the brevity of the format, SMS has a valuable place in this spectrum, both as a lowest common-denominator technology, and as a communications platform that often works when all others fail.

In a multi-channel world, where successful engagement and data capture are increasingly critical, and as businesses focus more and more on reaching previously difficult markets in low- and middle-income countries, who can afford to discount the world's most accessible, most widespread, digital communications medium?

Source: By Trevor Knoblich on 14th January 2013. 

Do you feel tempted to try it out yourself? Contact us at sales@moceansms.com or +603 8996 4780