SMS Still Most Popular Mobile Feature

Source: 160characters.org

A survey for the GSMA found that while SMS is still the most popular service on a mobile phone, MMS is up there in third place.

MMS has become a popular service among mobile phone users worldwide and mobile email may have even greater potential, according to a major consumer survey commissioned by the GSM Association, the global trade association for mobile phone operators.

More than 40% of the 3,061 consumers surveyed by Circle Research in Europe, North America and Asia regard MMS, which allows mobile phone users to swap pictures, music and video, as an indispensable service, while 38% see mobile email in the same light. When asked which mobile data services they prefer, the respondents ranked text messaging (SMS) first, followed by email and MMS ranked third.

Driven initially by the 'does-what-it-says-on-the-tin' mobile email service from Blackberry, mobile email has become an increasingly popular service among business people, in particular, thanks to technology that pushes the messages to users’ handsets mimicking the experience offered by text messaging.

First launched in 2002, it has taken till now for interoperability agreements and improved handset capability for MMS to gain any traction. However given that MMS was once widely touted to replace SMS, the number of MMS messages remains small by comparison. Indeed many users are still baffled by it and suffer from phones that are not properly set up to use the service.

There were some unsurprising regional differences in the survey. North American respondents ranked mobile email as the service they most prefer, ahead of text messaging and mobile instant messaging. In Europe and Asia, text-messaging scored highest, followed by mobile email and MMS.

The GSM Association says this research is the first in a series of surveys on consumer appetite for mobile services.

Ranked Preference for Mobile Data Services Service

1. SMS
2. Email
3. MMS
4. Alerts via SMS/MMS
5. Instant messaging
6. Web browsing and searching
7. Location-based services
8. Mobile radio
9. Financial transactions
10. Downloading content
11. Mobile TV
12. Video calling
13. Video sharing
14. Gambling