SMS Quietly Continues to Thrive

Technology News writes that Short Message Service (SMS) still "remains a popular application and a bona fide money maker for carriers." Bob Egan at The Tower Group said, "Because it is such a simple service, it can be easy to ignore SMS but it has been a cash cow for carriers."

The article cites recent research from : Analysys that found "mobile data accounted for just 4.8 percent of U.S. operators' total mobile services revenue, compared to 15.9 percent in Western Europe and 22.0 percent in Japan."

Bill Hughes at In-Stat said, "The SMS market has been much more developed oversees than here in the U.S." Lewis Ward at IDC pointed out that until recently, consumers couldn't send messages to others on different carriers. He said, "recently, there were a number of changes so users can now mix and match text messaging services."

The article runs through the current state of SMS and where many potential applications lie. Ward noted "When you examine the numbers, you see that text messaging is a service that skews toward a young demographic."

Ward added that "There is a big push among music and video producers to use MMS to increase product awareness. arriers are finding new uses of messaging technology and users are becoming more comfortable with it, so the market is expanding."