SMSing takes non-voice mkt up 139%

GURGAON: The overall non-voice market registered a growth of 139 percent for Calendar Year (CY) 2004 as compared to CY 2003. According to IDC India's recently published research report on the mobile data market, at present non-voice revenue contributes around 4.7 percent to the total mobile services revenue, which is around Rs 14,560 crore.






"The market has grown rapidly due to increasing awareness and acceptance of mobile value added services and applications among subscribers", said IDC (India) Ltd communication research analyst Mugdh Rajit. IDC segments Non-Voice market into three categories namely; SMS, MMS and other data services. According to IDC, SMS is the biggest contributor to the overall revenues of non-voice market and is expected to remain so in the near future. MMS services have not yet picked up as expected because of lack of handsets and high cost of service.





"Among other data services, monophonic ring tones are the most popular ones with an annual traffic of over 19 million," added Rajit. Polyphonic tunes and other downloads like wallpapers, logos, games etc. are also fast catching up and are expected to grow much faster once there is more number of compatible handsets available at a lower cost. Another barrier to the growth of these services has been the high cost of service itself.





Other data services like wallpapers, ring tones, games, P2A SMS etc. is the fastest growing segment in the non-voice space. According to IDC, this will be one space to watch out for in future. Though the present size is only around Rs. 191 crore it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 65 percent to reach Rs. 2,302 crore by 2008.