Mobile messages to surpass 2.1 trillion in Asia/Pacific and Japan in 2010; Indian volumes to reach 191.6 billion messages in 2013

MUMBAI, INDIA: Short Messaging Services (SMS) and mobile voice services are proving resilient even during financial crisis, as SMS in Asia/Pacific and Japan are on pace to reach 1.9 trillion messages in 2009, a 15.5 percent increase from 2008, according to Gartner, Inc. In 2010, SMS volumes are forecast to surpass 2.1 Trillion, a 12.7 percent increase from 2009.

Gartner analysts said that messaging traffic and revenues continue to be driven by new subscribers in developing markets.

"Strong organic growth continues in Asia's developing markets, with marginal subscribers turning to low-cost messaging as an entry-level service," said Madhusudan Gupta, senior research analyst at Gartner. "In the mature markets of the Asia/Pacific region, SMS has seen sustained healthy growth as a result of steady price declines and increasingly generous SMS and data bundles."

The impact of the financial crisis has been muted in Asia/Pacific and resulted in little impact on the estimates and forecasts for 2009. Carriers are expecting somewhat slower messaging traffic increases going into 2010, but in many cases there will still be double-digit-percentage rises.

Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) traffic picked up in Asia during 2008, driven by reduced prices and increased uploading of pictures to social networking sites.

"'Big bucket' or large inclusive SMS and MMS bundles will also increase traffic by lowering the price barriers to usage," said Mr. Gupta. "At the same time, competition and network efficiencies will continue to drive down the retail price of SMS and MMS for consumers. Application traffic will continue to support growth, especially in the mature markets."

SMS growth will, however be, slow as mobile markets approach saturation and other types of messaging, including mobile e-mail and mobile instant messaging, become more widely adopted. Integrated messaging clients on handsets will facilitate adoption of alternative messaging services, as will the use of alternative rich-messaging services on smartphones.