Jupiter research reports that premium Mobile Messaging revenues will rival online advertising by 2006 Press release, Jupitermedia Corporation Wednesday, October 9, 2002

Jupiter Research, a division of Jupitermedia Corporation (Nasdaq: JUPM) (formerly INT Media Group, Inc.) today announced that revenues from premium mobile messaging in Europe are set to rival online advertising by 2006, according to their latest research released today. Jupiter Research has forecast that application providers will be able capture €4.6 billion in 2006 from premium mobile messaging, compared to €3.1 billion for online advertising.
In the near term, however, the future of mobile messaging will remain with Short Message Service (SMS) due primarily to the slow deployment of Mobile Messaging Service (MMS)-enabled handsets. European consumer spending on mobile messaging will reach €22.2 billion in 2005, but only 18% of this will come from MMS. In the same year, spending on premium SMS will reach €2.9 billion, making this market comparable on a European level to that of the Minitel in France.

Whilst there is vast potential in all European markets to make MMS a true mass-market medium, Jupiter Research believes that the best way to encourage uptake is to focus on premium SMS. By launching low-to-medium priced services, targeted initially to kids and teens, the uptake of premium SMS should increase to 21% of European mobile phone users using Premium SMS in 2004. As person-to-person SMS will continue to dominate mobile messaging traffic in Europe through 2007, MMS traffic will reach 21.4 billion messages yearly in the same time period - driven primarily by photo-enabled mobile handsets that allow users to take digital photos and send them to others.

Olivier Beauvillain, Analyst at Jupiter Research, said "The high price of MMS-enabled handsets and lack of service interoperability in the major European countries won't make MMS a mass market before 2005. While preparing for MMS, content providers must continue to put the majority of their initiatives and investments in premium SMS."