A new study undertaken by the HPI Research Group, one of the top 20 research companies in the UK, has highlighted the potential for upcoming mobile multimedia messaging services. These are messaging services that extend beyond present-day short message service (SMS) to include not only text, but also graphics, images, video and animations.
Thanks to the groundwork laid by the clear success of 2G messaging, there is a ready-made subscriber base of mobile-device users who will easily make the move to multimedia messaging. This base of existing messaging users points to a successful take-up of the more advanced messaging services 3G will bring.
HPI interviewed over 12,000 people in six markets from March to April this year: the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, USA, Brazil and Singapore. The study discovered "a very buoyant and fertile market in which to launch new messaging services". This is borne out by the widespread presence of messaging devices and messaging habits that already exist.
"The current messaging market shows a high prevalence of messaging and a healthy attitude towards this means of person-to-person communications," says Janne Laiho, Market Research Manager at Nokia, which commissioned the study. "This enthusiasm will translate into actual take-up, and will inspire entirely new users to join the growing number of mobile messaging consumers. Mobile messaging will clearly play a significant role in increasing 2.5G and 3G revenues streams."
The study found that access to a messaging device is high, mainly via a mobile phone or a PC. Across all six markets, access varied from 81 per cent in the US to 43 per cent in Brazil.
Actual use of the devices for messaging is also pervasive, with almost half of the population currently messaging (by any of the above means), and a quarter by mobile phone. This is promising for the future of messaging, especially considering that young people exhibited the highest levels of messaging usage in the survey. This figure can be expected to be considerably higher in the future as the population ages.
Furthermore, the study points to evidence that the current level of messaging has not reached its full potential. In the study's core target group of 16 to 45 year old mobile-phone users, 86 per cent currently send messages and 77 per cent do so by mobile phones. It appears that, even with these already-high levels of usage, there is room to grow even within the tech savvy target group. The group demonstrates lower resistance to the new messaging formats (such as video) than the population at large and a greater eagerness for new developments in messaging technology.
For the total sample, the greatest demand is for services that offer functional improvements to messaging. Three-quarters of those currently with access to a messaging device welcomed some functional advancement such as easier text input. In addition, just over a half of the current messaging population is interested in visual enhancements, such as the ability to send a photograph, video or music clip, or to enhance text.
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Note to editors: Mobile multimedia messaging is the ability to send and receive messages comprising different content types such as graphics, still images, animations and video clips. The messages are exchanged between mobile terminals or between mobile terminals and the Internet. The study defined "a messaging device" to be a mobile phone, a PC, digital TV or a pager. Access to these devices for personal use was 66 per cent of the overall population studied.