Mobile Network Operators See SMS as the Driver for Growth

A new survey conducted for Airwide Solutions shows that mobile operators regard SMS as the driving force behind future advanced services.

According to the report, social networking will drive increases in both person to person and application to person SMS. To that end, 75% of the operators surveyed said that they would be investing in social networking and mobile applications this year. Mobile broadband and location services are also expected to play a role in the next generation of applications.

Significantly for the mobile marketing sector, the enterprise messaging market (sometimes called bulk SMS) is expected to expand by 75% this year as brands, corporates, utilities and banks (those that are still going, at least) will make greater use of SMS to connect with their customers. Whilst some of this will be represented by service messages, a significant amount will be customer relationship and direct marketing campaigns. For some institutions, such as banks, service reliability is critical and the network operators are likely to focus investment to offer better delivery.

While most of the media focus has been on smartphones and apps, it would appear that the humble SMS is still the cash cow for network operators. Whilst some analysts have predicted a peak to SMS, the increase of 30% in a mature market such as the UK, shows that there is still plenty of life it the market.

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