Clickatell CEO, Pieter de Villiers\u00a0says that SMS will be here for a while, as IP messaging is finding its feet in terms of accessibility, reliability and unified platforms.<\/p>\n
Speaking to MyBroadband from Clickatell\u2019s headquarters in Redwood Shores, California, de Villiers highlighted that all reputable research shows that SMS still rules the mobile messaging market in terms of both traffic and revenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cSMS generated the highest revenue in 2011 and SMS revenue is forecast to dominate worldwide mobile messaging over the next five years to 2016,\u201d said\u00a0de Villiers.<\/p>\n
\u201cNearly 8 trillion SMS messages were exchanged worldwide in 2011, and total SMS traffic is expected to near 9 and a half trillion by the end of 2016. It will be many years before any other mobile service can rival that type of volume.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mobile messaging services like BlackBerry Messaging (BBM) and WhatsApp are growing in popularity, but de Villiers\u00a0argues that \u2018free\u2019 is not enough to make people migrate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not a question of which whether or not free or paid-for text messaging will prevail, because consumers will pay for cell phone services and convenience for as long as the services are easily accessible and reliable,\u201d said\u00a0de Villiers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen services are free, we tend to be a bit more \u2018tolerant\u2019 with accepting a less than ideal user experience or service quality. The ubiquity, reliability and ease-of-use of SMS make it the best way to reach a mobile consumer today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTomorrow there may be another set of technologies that achieves this at a lower cost to the end users and our customers. As the pioneers of enterprise SMS, we expect to be at the forefront of that shift too,\u201d said\u00a0de Villiers.<\/p>\n
The end of SMS<\/strong><\/p>\n De Villiers\u00a0said that a hot topic in the mobile messaging industry at the moment is the issue of \u2018the end of SMS\u2019 and the rise of Over-the-Top (OTT) messaging services.<\/p>\n According to the Clickatell CEO, there is no doubt that OTT messaging services have gained momentum, particularly amongst mobile users with smartphones, but OTT messaging services also have their limitations.<\/p>\n \u201cThe services usually offer free texting between users with the same application, handset brand or operating systems. The 2012 Portio research shows that although OTT is expected to grow in popularity it is not expected to cannibalize SMS nearly as much as many people think,\u201d said\u00a0de Villiers.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead, the view is that OTT traffic and SMS traffic is going to grow synergistically side-by-side. As new ways of messaging become available, consumers tend to adopt the new ways alongside the old.\u201d<\/p>\n De Villiers\u00a0added that SMS is also still expected to dominate the growing A2P market (messaging that originates from, or terminates to, an application).<\/p>\n \u201cA2P growth is bolstered by the use of SMS for mobile marketing by third parties and by mobile operators to promote their own services. Traditional bulk messaging for services such as alerts, horoscopes, showbiz, stocks and traffic updates are also showing solid growth,\u201d said\u00a0de Villiers.<\/p>\n