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Top level
Industry Information
Technologies
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More than a year after the widespread launch of MMS services, operators remain reluctant to divulge too much information about the MMS traffic they carry on their networks. Vodafone, for example, released details of Java downloads by its live! subscribers in July, but stayed silent on MMS traffic.
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Some cellcos are breaking the silence, however, and it is fair to suggest that some, at least, have an easier time doing so because they have a good story to tell. In Norway, for example, Telenor Mobil subscribers exchanged 1.6 million MMSes in July (see fig.), buoyed no doubt by the fact that photo messaging was free and available across both Telenor's and rival Netcom's networks.
Meanwhile, close to 10% of the subscriber base of MobileOne in Singapore are already active MMS users, according to the cellco, beating Etisalat in the United Arab Emirates, which claims 200,000 active MMS users, or 8.6% of its subs base. Both MobileOne and Maxis in Malaysia claim that a high proportion of their subscribers who have MMS-enabled handsets are active users - some 65% in M1's case and 57% in Maxis'.
In Europe, O2 has been more open than its competitors about its MMS results.
It reported as part of its 2Q03 results that its UK subscribers sent 1.6 million MMS messages in 2Q03, up from 925,000 in 1Q03. O2 UK had 525,000 revenue-generating GPRS subs in 2Q03.
O2 Germany subscribers, meanwhile, sent 953,000 MMSes in 2Q03, compared to 609,000 in 1Q03.
O2 Germany's subscriber base is less than half that of O2 UK, which means that the operator's German subs are more MMS-happy. In Germany, O2 subs sent 0.18 MMSes per subscriber in the quarter, one-third more than O2 UK subs, who sent only 0.12 messages on average. Some 17% of O2 Germany's data revenues emanated from non-SMS services, according to the cellco.
Many operators have switched focus from their initial drive for MMS as a P2P messaging medium, after realizing that a substantial installed handset based is required to make it viable. Instead, many push A2P, and TIM in Italy claims that A2P traffic is higher than P2P. Fellow Italian cellco WIND says traffic is split evenly (MM, 5 Dec, 2003).
Vodafone Germany, meanwhile, maintains that there is "significant growth" in MMS, with the most popular services being P2P photo messaging and subscriptions to MMS info services.
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