Revenue from non-voice mobile phone services will increase from $200 billion in 2009 to $340 billion (£223 billion) in 2014, according to new research from Informa Telecoms & Media. It says emerging markets will be the key driver of these mobile data services.
Shailendra Pandey, senior analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media, said "Compared to the developed world, there are very different economic, social, demographic and cultural challenges in the emerging markets. In many countries, 3G services are still not available, or are limited to mobile subscribers in larger cities. Therefore operators have to depend on 2G services such as SMS, USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems, to be able to drive mass market adoption of their mobile value-added-services, and to successfully reach subscribers in smaller towns and rural areas."
The report says operators in emerging markets are seeing particularly strong uptake of utility-type services because these services have a big impact on the day-to-day lives of the local population and contribute to their social and economic development.