Market will grow six per cent this year, despite global economic woes.
Research firm Infonetics reckons the global market for mobile web, voice, and messaging services will hit $976bn by 2016.
And it says the market will grow this year too, with emerging markets Asia Pacific and Latin America are set to account for the highest growth. However, EMEA is set to fall, a result of an overcrowded market and economic troubles.
Meanwhile, mobile data (SMS, MMS, mobile web) revenue was up in every region last year, unsurprisingly fuelled by rising smartphone use, while APAC accounted for the largest revs with more that $250 billion.
Voice revs dropped last year, but only by 0.8 per cent, showing that there's still an interest in people actually speaking to each other despite the ubiquity of OTT messaging and social media.
Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics, Infonetics Research, said: "Already in North America and Asia Pacific, mobile operators derive over 40 per cent of their mobile revenue from mobile broadband and messaging.
"But, while mobile broadband is no doubt the fastest growing revenue stream for operators, mobile messaging and voice aren't dead just yet, not by a long shot."
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