RIM offered Juniper award as MMS revenues set to grow by 94 percent

Ad-funded MMS revenues are set to take-off over the next five years with annual growth rates reaching 94%, says Juniper Research.

In a recent report, entitled ‘Mobile Messaging & IP Evolution’, Juniper Research found that the Far East & China would lead the global ad-funded MMS market by a considerable margin, followed by North America and Western Europe.

The number of brands using MMS as an advertising medium is growing rapidly, with push MMS and SMS being used in both mature and emerging markets. This has enabled network operators to support ad-funded voice and SMS tariffs, and combat falling ARPU, while providing brands with new advertising channels.

The report also concluded that the number of mobile email users will climb by 21% to reach 1.1 billion in 2014 and that SMS’ share of total global P2P mobile messaging revenues will decline by 18% over the forecast period.

Steve Reynolds, Chairman of the MDA said: “Despite the global economic meltdown, mobile messaging continues to grow significantly. This report provides valuable intelligence to empower mobile-messaging-centric businesses in developing future demand-based commercial strategies.”

The influence of social networking and Web 2.0 applications has been significant on both operator and vendor strategies. RIM in particular, has made the addition of custom-built social networking applications for Facebook and MySpace, plus AOL instant messaging and other applications – these factors contributed to RIM being awarded Juniper’s Future Mobile Gold Award for Mobile Messaging.

“The inclusion of popular messaging and social networking applications has broadened its appeal and ensured the BlackBerry has maintained its position as a compelling mobile messaging device.” said report author and Future Mobile Awards panel judge, Ian Chard.