ABI Research: Push-to-Talk to reach 8.5% penetration in North America by 2013; What about the rest of the world?

Push to Talk (PTT), the feature that enables users to connect virtually instantaneously with other users, is forecast to find its way into 8.5% of the North American market by the end of 2013. But in no other world region will it even begin to approach that market share.

According to ABI Research senior analyst Mark Beccue, the problem is that non-U.S. operators haven’t figured the right way to promote the service. Mark argues that PTT is essentially a business application and when used in vertical businesses, it makes perfect sense. “Its best-known exponent, Nextel (now Sprint (NYSE: S)-Nextel) proved that with its subscriber numbers. But strangely, in other world regions MNOs have failed to market PTT successfully to business users or have opted to market to consumers, and it just hasn’t taken off,” he added.

There’s an interesting new technology out there called PTX, designed to make push-to-talk work for the consumers, which extends the PTT principle to include multimedia content.

ABI continues saying there are some steps operators can take to help unlock the PTT market. Steering away from PTT-specific handsets is one. Another more risky move would be to migrate to an open model allowing PTT usage cross carriers via downloadable and clientless applications.

Speaking about the open model, some vendors are already addressing this: in the UK, Push to Talk Ltd offers downloadable client software which, along with a monthly fee, allows users to do cross-network PTT. And Kodiak Networks offers downloadable and preloadable PTT applications that reduce the need for users to have PTT-capable handsets.

These and other PTT market questions are addressed in ABI Research’s new Research Brief called “Push To Talk Services”. You can get more information about it from their website.