We have relaunched: What's new at ZDNet Asia?

SMS still No.1 in Asia, study finds

Summary

SMS will remain the dominant application for Asian mobile phone users despite growing interest in mobile e-mail and instant messaging, study predicts.

Events

Microsoft MSDN/Developer Event
25 Mar 2010

One Marina Boulevard, Microsoft Singapore

IT Architect Regional Conference Singapore 2010
20 - 21 Apr 2010

Singapore Management University, Singapore

The Internet Show 2010
21-22 Apr 2010

Suntec Singapore

The outlook for text messaging in the Asia-Pacific region remains bright, according to a new study from Portio Research released Tuesday.

Despite strong challenges from other mobile messaging services--such as mobile e-mail and mobile instant messaging (mobile IM)--short messaging service (SMS) will remain the dominant force in the region, the study outlined.

Portio analyst John White told ZDNet Asia in an e-mail that there will be an estimated 1.4 billion additional mobile phone users in Asia by 2012, and SMS revenue in the region will mushroom from US$16 billion in 2006, up to US$22.7 billion in 2012.

White added that regional SMS traffic within the same period will explode, fuelled by a flood of new subscribers and handset purchases in the Asia-Pacific. The number of SMS messages will spike sharply from 967.7 billion in 2006 to a staggering 2071 billion messages by 2012, he predicted.

In contrast, Portio's outlook is different for the North American market. Mobile instant messaging (MIM) is forecast to supplant SMS as the mainstream messaging service within the next four years due to the proliferation of smartphones and wireless Internet, its study showed.

White said that although there will still be more SMS users than mobile IM users, "our study forecasts the number of IM messages to grow more than SMS messages in the United States sometime after 2011".

In Asia, doubt remains over IM's ability to ever topple SMS as the mainstream messaging service. "SMS will remain the dominant peer-to-peer messaging service in Asia-Pacific, as IM will require the user to have 'always-on' services like GPRS or 3G," said Alex Chau, senior research manager at analyst house IDC, in an e-mail.

Chau noted that in developing countries like India, China and Thailand, users are still using just the basic services, such as voice and SMS.

Portio's White agreed with this assessment. "We do not see this trend in Asia…mobile IM will be popular in Asia, but not as popular across the whole region as SMS," he said.

The Portio analyst added that, while mobile e-mail--another messaging competitor--will become popular, it is unlikely to pose a major threat to SMS revenues within the next few years.

"Mobile e-mail will continue to grow very healthily in the enterprise sector," White observed. "But outside Japan, mobile e-mail will have little impact on mass consumer markets, only with the elite, high-end smartphone users."

Talkback

Add your opinion

In order to post a comment, you need to be registered. (Sign In or register below)

Post your comment
Transform your business interactions with real-time voice, video and telepresence solutions.
Tech Vendor: Cisco

ZDNet Asia Live

whatever little understanding I have we 'll only progress toward end of the world if we use HPCs to lenthen life of human being. Huma...

5 hours 35 minutes ago by abhi32002@gmail.com on High computing promises elixir of life

Thanks for the knowledgeable article on SDDs. Allas...when all this reasearch will happen in Indian Universities. Hope the new bill on Fo...

5 hours 48 minutes ago by abhi32002@gmail.com on APAC HPC users eye solid-state drives

It was a good article. This brings a good opportunity for Indian IT firms to come up with new solutions in this field. HPC can become a b...

6 hours 7 minutes ago by abhi32002@gmail.com on High computing most-wanted job in Asia

COL KR DHARMADHIKARY(RETD) its very late to reply the link, but if it is still alive and looking for opportunity, i would like to know th...

10 hours 4 minutes ago by deb021280 on Education takes off in rural India, helped by PCs

It was just a matter of time until google was marginalised anyway. I'm afraid this will be forgotten in China very quickly. Still, it...

12 hours 9 minutes ago by robinsmith on Report: Google to leave China on April 10

High performance computing (HPC) most-wanted job in Asia http://bit.ly/9vFC3i (via @zdnetasia) #singapore

He doesn't care if her shoes are of glass, All he wants to see is a huge rack and nice a*s. Sleeping beauty's not awoken by true ...

12 hours 38 minutes ago by warlowdavies on One pair of 3D glasses to rule them all

RT @zdnetasia: EMC COO, Pat Gelsinger, on bridging gaps in the organization and its cloud ambitions in Asia. (cont) http://tl.gd/i5jjd

EMC COO, Pat Gelsinger, on bridging gaps in the organization and its cloud ambitions in Asia. http://bit.ly/9etOZW

Spoke to EMC COO, Pat Gelsinger, earlier, and here's the account of the interview: http://bit.ly/9etOZW

13 hours 20 minutes ago by kevinzdnetasia on topsy

Asian SMBs need to pay more attention to disaster recovery planning http://bit.ly/bDet08 via @zdnetasia

Asian SMBs need to pay more attention to disaster recovery planning http://bit.ly/bDet08

Experts: social media guidelines good for upcoming Youth Olympic Games, but focus on cooperation, not enforcement. http://bit.ly/d9M0BQ

13 hours 51 minutes ago by zdnetasia on topsy

Asian SMBs need to pay more attention to disaster recovery planning http://bit.ly/bDet08

13 hours 53 minutes ago by kevinzdnetasia on topsy

RT @LotusKnows ZDNet Asia features IBM collaboration roadmap story from LCTY Singapore - http://bit.ly/9CuSbZ #lotusknows

14 hours 46 minutes ago by lyvconnections on topsy

[TECH] URL Shorteners slow Web redirection. - http://bit.ly/bySnWK @zdnetasia

URL shorteners are great but they can slow web redirection & you pray it would never go down http://bit.ly/bySnWK via @zdnetasia

Temasek Holdings eyeing tech stocks, indicating optimistic outlook on IT sector. http://bit.ly/aM7VwU

URL shorteners slow Web redirection. http://bit.ly/bySnWK

Chinese agencies cry foul over Google. http://bit.ly/by6rwV

Philippine antipiracy drive focuses on enterprises. http://bit.ly/aWryDC

Gartner: China to become world's fastest-growing enterprise software market. http://bit.ly/bqJTtb

all of sg's isps have been practising compulsory invisible proxy for all home subscribers at their backend since many years back alre...

1 day 48 minutes ago by melvinchia on Web filters mean bad news for business

it is not to good for china.
Proactol

1 day 33 minutes ago by nathonastle on Chinese ad partners beg Google for information

RT @zdnetasia: HP touts new products and management and productivity tools to address business computing pain points. http://bit.ly/dudgA6

For those with a computer science background, or interested in the high performance computing scene: http://bit.ly/9vFC3i

HP touts new products and management and productivity tools to address business computing pain points. http://bit.ly/dudgA6

Very good explanation of JMX

2 days 38 minutes ago by Babith B on Managing applications with JMX

The reaction to a report issued Tuesday by Flurry Analytics managed to completely overlook some interesting news--the Android-based Motorola Droid outsold the original iPhone over the same period of time following their respective launches--to focus instead on the sales numbers for the Nexus One.

2 days 41 minutes ago by lonemavericks on diggs

Another ZTE story....

2 days 43 minutes ago by Moderate Your Greed on Philippines opens bid for final 3G license

We at www.fifosys.com have also seen a growth in IT outsourcing and anticipate it as a growing field.

3 days 17 minutes ago by sarah Jane on Companies' outsourcing spend to increase

I agree with you. The iSiVaL is super portable and TVs can't expand their image size. I recorded a video that might bring some ideas to...

3 days 47 minutes ago by Jesse B Andersen on Buying a projector? Try an LED TV instead

hermm... he deserved it.. he shud not talk abt sensitive things like tat, well, he shud think twice before saying all those things, event...

3 days 25 minutes ago by ... on Facebook user charged in Malaysia

Password manager tools are potential security threat. Criminals who hack into the computer can use the password manager to log onto any s...

3 days 25 minutes ago by ohanae on What defaults should random password generators use?

I've found the cross platform utility unetbootin to be rather handy for this kind of thing as well.

3 days 59 minutes ago by Jim on Use Live USB Creator to install Fedora 12 from a USB stick