Digital Lifescapes

Mobile messaging is evolving. Traditional services include offerings such as carrier SMS, as well as over-the-top software app-based services. Now new offerings based on the Rich Communication Services (RCS) messaging standard, and in-application AI chatbots, may disrupt that legacy market. RCS is a next-generation mobile messaging standard supported by mobile network operators that enable media-rich content and payment services. Juniper Research has forecast that total revenues from RCS traffic in North America will reach $712.8 million during 2020. North America will drive 28 percent of total messaging revenue in 2020 -- due in part to the adoption of RCS messaging, and the supporting efforts of the Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative (CCMI) which is a joint venture between AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. While CCMI will initially focus on U.S. market deployment, the technology developed by the joint venture will eventually be available in the broader worldwide mobile co...

Mobile messaging today encompasses both the more traditional services offered by mobile network operators -- such as SMS or MMS -- and the popular Over the Top (OTT) messaging services from software application providers, such as WhatsApp and WeChat. SMS usage, specifically person-to-person (P2P) texting, has declined rapidly in many markets, while its growth has slowed in others. However, there are forms of SMS messaging which do continue to see some growth -- in particular, within the enterprise messaging sector. Furthermore, SMS has continued to succeed in less developed regions of the world, particularly those with a large number of feature phones, and those that have low 3G or 4G infrastructure penetration. According to the latest worldwide study by Juniper Research , mobile and online messaging traffic will reach 160 trillion per year by 2019, that's up from 94.2 trillion this year -- equating to approximately 438 billion messages sent and received by users on a daily b...

If you remember back when Centrex service was available from your local phone company, then the latest trend of enterprise voice communication moving to the cloud is like Deja Vu. It seems that we've been here before. Infonetics Research conducted in-depth surveys with 162 medium and large organizations in North America and discovered that by 2016 over 50 percent of respondents will be running some of their Unified Communications (UC) applications over either a private or public cloud service. UC integrates fragmented communication modes -- such as voice, e-mail and instant messaging -- into a single integrated communication experience. The latest Infonetics worldwide market study explored CIO and IT manager plans for UC and their perceptions of UC vendors and cloud unified-communications‑as-a-service (UCaaS) providers. "Businesses continue to migrate their unified communications applications to the cloud, citing flexibility as the key reason. Cloud solutions are in...

Findings from a worldwide market study by Juniper Research highlights the growing disparity between traffic volumes and revenues in the mobile messaging market. Despite accounting for 75 percent of the traffic -- or 63 trillion messages -- by 2018, Instant Messaging (IM) apps will only generate 2 percent of the mobile messaging market's revenue. It's easy to be distracted by the recent media hype and miss the key significance of this market development opportunity. The service provider revenue from mobile messaging is not the big story here, and neither is the Facebook acquisition of WhatsApp. I believe it's how mobile messaging will transform marketing communications. Let me explain. Impact of Exploding Mobile IM Adoption The findings from the Juniper market study stated that the increasingly high IM traffic volumes are the result of a number of key factors that should be on the radar for all savvy marketers. Chief among those findings is the fact that usage of m...

For the longest time, text messaging has been a huge cash cow for mobile network service providers. However, the eager acceptance of over-the-top (OTT) mobile device applications is greatly expanding the overall messaging market and comes partly at the expense of legacy text messaging. According to the latest market study by ABI Research, the deployment of competitive Voice over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE) and Rich Communication Services (RCS) will likely help network operators retain 65 percent of their former messaging market share. That being said, the many free or low-cost mobile messaging application (app) alternatives available to consumers are still a worrying concern for mobile network operators. Operators can use VoLTE and RCS services, ultimately to retain their subscribers, and also increase revenues that will come with the many innovations from third party developers. The quality of services that VoLTE and RCS can provide to their customers will be as table stakes i...

Juniper Research forecasts that mobile data roaming revenues will grow by 21 percent per year between 2012 and 2017, reaching over $35 billion in 2017 -- driven by an increasing number of active roamers using data services while abroad. However, Juniper notes that the number of people not actively using any data services still fear the unknown cost of mobile network provider fees, as this continues to be markedly higher when compared to potential voice roamers. Silent roamers, as they are called, exercise caution or do not use voice and data services while roaming and represent a significant non-user segment. Powered by the proliferation in smartphones and a dramatic growth in data usage, data roaming is being seen as a key growth driver for mobile network operators -- albeit with cost-effective packages coupled with subscriber control over usage. The Juniper market study found that the majority of mobile customers were using voice services when roaming abroad, but this activit...

According to the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media , mobile phone short message service (SMS) will remain a significant source of revenues and traffic for mobile operators on a global basis until at least 2015. Global SMS text messaging revenues are forecast to rise to $136.9 billion in 2015 -- from $105.5 billion in 2010. While global SMS traffic is expected to increase to 8.7 trillion messages in 2015 -- from 5 trillion messages in 2010. "Mobile operators are spending heavily on rollouts of LTE and other high-speed mobile data networks, leaving relatively little in the budget for messaging services, however SMS remains a core service for mobile users and continues to account for the vast majority, 80 percent in 2010, of their data-and-messaging revenues," says Pamela Clark-Dickson, senior analyst at Informa. SMS will continue to be the most popular form of messaging for a number of reasons: universal access and interoperability across devices and mob...