At a time when operators are heavily focusing on rolling out data applications and offering a wide range of content, their bread and butter still lies with SMS. According to a recent IDC study, the mobile messaging market in Western Europe, which includes SMS, MMS, and MIM, will be worth more than $15.4bn in 2010.
“Mobile messaging will continue to play a key role in the industry for many companies, not just mobile operators,” said Paolo Pescatore, research manager at IDC. He believes that operators need to find out how best to serve their target markets with messaging if they are not to lose out to opportunistic third parties.