Calling for rapid growth in an already strong market, a Dutch company today announced ways to double text-messaging revenues around the world by 2011.
By adding more features to make mobile messaging more personal and integrating services with popular Internet sites such as Facebook and eBay (News - Alert), total revenues could double to $165 billion in the next three years, according to Amsterdam-based Acision.
Speculation that text messaging is peaking now ignores the technology’s potential to thrive by piggy-backing on other services, said Rory Buckley (News - Alert), Acision’s chief executive officer.
“Peer-to-peer communication is showing no sign of stalling or declining, and,
already in Southeast Asia, operators’ efforts to differentiate their services
by adding features such as out-of-office and blacklisting are proving popular
with subscribers,” Buckley said.
Acision (News - Alert) officials also point to the possibility that text messaging will continue to expand outside of the United States and Europe.
According to the company, the technology has delivered a 6,000 percent return on investment since hitting the market 15 years ago, and markets in India and China continue to see steep increases.
“Even within the more mature markets of Western Europe and South East Asia, messaging still has huge growth potential,” Acision officials said.
For Buckley, text messaging must find a way to integrate with increasingly popular communications Internet sites.
“It is with application-to-peer and peer-to-application messaging that the wider opportunities lie,” he said. “We believe that capitalizing on the opportunities afforded by web applications as Facebook (News - Alert) - essentially an enormous web-based multimedia messaging environment - and effectively harnessing mobile marketing will enable operators to double mobile messaging revenues by 2011.”
Facebook’s name has made headlines this week, as Microsoft (News - Alert) has eyed the company as a potential partner in developing a search tool to rival Google.
Michael Dinan is a TMCNet Editor. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
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