SAN FRANCISCO-Two new reports peg wireless messaging as an important and growing application, one that could contribute significant revenues to the wireless market.
According to a new study from Telephia Inc. and Harris Interactive, the holiday season could drive greatly increased messaging among young adult users. The study found that young adults have doubled their text messaging usage in the past year-from 22 percent to 45 percent-and that 38 percent of these users describe themselves as frequent text messagers.
Further, the study found that 41 percent of young adults plan to upgrade their handsets in the coming year, which would likely further drive text messaging usage.
Indeed, a separate study from Telecom Trends International found that multimedia messaging-which adds pictures and sounds to text messages-will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 220 percent in the next six years. The firm predicts MMS messages will increase from 646 million this year to 697 billion by 2008. Mobile instant messaging will follow a similar growth pattern, growing at a rate of 170 percent.
