MMS Grows In The USA

Mobile 365 has said that their U.S. MMS traffic increased 40% from Q1 to Q2, 2006.

Total U.S. MMS Mobile Originated (MO) traffic for the second quarter was 52,071,114 MO messages; total traffic for the first quarter was 34,405,598 MO messages. MMS mobile content includes video, photos, audio, and rich text such as wallpaper, ringtones, games, and applications.

Since launching inter-operator MMS in 2005, Mobile 365 has delivered more than 132,000,000 MMS messages in the U.S. The average month-over-month MMS growth for 2006 is 12%. In terms of MMS traffic, Mobile 365 says that the United States is the global frontrunner, based on quarterly statistics released by operators and as published by Informa Telecoms & Media. When combined with SMS, Mobile 365 delivers more than two billion personal messages a month.

“The success of Mobile 365′s inter-operator MMS traffic can be seen as a positive barometer for overall U.S. MMS uptake,” said Greg Dunn, Vice President, Americas, Mobile 365. “Despite a slight historical downturn in overall messaging during the summer months, our June MMS traffic grew, indicating organic growth that shows that subscribers are continuing to use MMS messaging as part of their everyday lives.”

More Room For Growth

“Mobile 365 continues to experience tremendous MMS growth,” said Gino Picasso, CEO of Mobile 365. “With the high adoption rate of MMS-capable handsets by U.S. consumers, we will continue to see explosive MMS traffic growth and the rise of new MMS-focused applications and services.”

Mobile 365′s new UK country manager Mark Weait commented that “The US is clearly enjoying dramatic growth in MMS traffic, and with MMS tariffs here becoming more affordable it is only a matter of time before UK MMS volumes increase, especially as consumers start to feel more comfortable in using this media rich application.” However price is only one factor affecting the take up of MMS. As well as usability issues, there is a widespread and often justified lack of consumer confidence in the relaibility of MMS to actually deliver messages.

US/Israel SMS

Given the current tension in the Middle East, a deal announced today between Mobile 365 and Israeli mobile operator Cellcom for the exchange text messages with mobile subscribers from all U.S. operators is very timely.

Tags: MMS, Premium Services, SMS

This entry was posted on July 20th, 2006 and is filed under Operators. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.