According to Informa‘s World Cellular Data Metrics (WCDM), global mobile data revenues from services other than SMS exceeded US$10 billion in the first quarter of this year, reaching US$11.3 billion — up from US$8.1 billion in Q1 2006.
To put it in other words, operators are finally seeing payback of their infrastructure investments, with nearly one third of all data revenues coming from the non-SMS services.
However, it’s important to note this doesn’t mean SMS is at the end of its road. On the contrary, worldwide SMS traffic was up year-on-year by around 50% totalling more than 620 billion messages sent in Q1 2007. Revenues were up by 23% over the same period last year, helping total data revenues to reach the record US$34.3 billion in the quarter. The higher increase in SMS traffic compared to revenue reflects lower SMS tariffs and the greater availability of bundled packages.
Out of 70 operators tracked in WCDM, the proportion of data revenues coming from non-SMS ranged vastly, from just 1% (Vodafone Egypt) to over 70% (KTF, Korea).
Message to operators: learn from the Korean carriers – they make their money in advanced services. Just please hurry up with 3 and 3.5 G network roll-outs…