Mobile messaging revenues worldwide are expected to grow to $233 billion in 2014, up from about $150 billion in 2009, according to a new forecast issued by Portio Research. Portio reports that global SMS traffic exceeded 5 trillion messages in 2009, a total expected to double by 2013–more than 4 billion subscribers have now embraced texting, the firm adds. In addition, MMS continues to grow, with full-year revenues for 2009 close to $27 billion worldwide (comparable to what SMS generated five years ago).

The Portio forecast also anticipates mobile email revenues will triple over the next five years, thanks to rapid adoption of smartphones and accompanying bundled data plans. Enterprise email accounts for between 70 percent and 85 percent of current revenues. Also growing: Mobile IM, led by the youth segment. About a billion consumers are expected to regularly use mobile IM by 2014, translating to revenues of $18 billion.

Source: Fierce Wireless

In all, more than 46.3 million mobile subscribers worldwide used the Opera Mini browser in December, up 11 percent month-over-month and increasing more than 159 percent compared to December 2008. Users viewed more than 20.7 billion pages last month, increasing 10.1 percent over November totals and up 223 percent year-over-year. Opera Mini users generated over 315 million megabytes of data during the month, with data traffic growing 206 percent over December 2008.

Despite Facebook’s continued growth, the site remains the second most-visited mobile website in the U.S., trailing search giant Google. Yahoo, Wikipedia and MySpace round out the top five. Opera page-view growth in the U.S. grew 228.1 percent over December 2008, with unique user growth up 128.5 percent–users now view an average of 276 mobile web pages per month.

Source: Opera

Mr. Subhash Dhar, Member Executive Council and Group Head – Sales and
Marketing, Infosys* quoted in his keynote speech that till now Internet was
considered a radical phenomenon but now the Mobile is all set to create a
similar revolution. Mobile Value Added Services are about to create a huge
buzz in the market for the masses.”The point was supported by *Mr. Uday
Sodhi, Chief Executive Officer, Balaji Telefilms* “The current Average
Revenue per User (*ARPU*) lingers around 8-9% however by the end of this
year we shall see a rise to about 12-14% with an extensive increase to
nearly Rs. 11,000 Crore.” “The future of businesses will be driven by
broader digital engagement with their consumers and will act as a catalyst
in the future economy” according to *Mr. Dhar*. He further added that all
ecosystem players will have to join hands to bring Mobile Value Added
Services to the masses.

With over more than 500 Million mobile phone users in the country,
penetration to various areas with multilingual diversities and providing vast
content like games, applications, astrology, Mobile banking etc. and related
services is a challenge which has to be accomplished. The emphasis was on
the 3G/4G aspect and providing faster access like broadband availability to
take MVAS further. *Mr. Shyam Mardikar, Sr. Vice President – Networks,
Bharti Airtel Limited* said “Telecom is a mature business and the consumer
is choosy, quality of services needs to be refined, optimised and
manifestation of existing services has to be done”.

*Shri. SS Sirohi, Principal General Manager & Head, VAS, Bharat Sanchar
Nigam Limited* spoke about mobile banking transactions focus on volumes and
diverse content provisioning, mobile advertising, Location based services
like GPRS which are in their initial stages. Nearly 7.5 Lakh customers are
using 3G BSNL, currently available in 300 cities and the target is to spread
it to 700 cities by July 2010. 50 Million ringtones are downloaded every
month. The Indian Premier League shall be merging with Youtube and the
cricket match can be viewed from the cell phone with a staggering 36 camera
view options. The speed of 3G is 3.5Mbps if the download speed is enhanced
or the bandwidth is increased, user will have an enriched experience by
downloading movies, games, and utilities at a faster rate. He added, new
customers, new platforms, new generators, new operators are joining the
market everyday so the opportunity is tremendous.

The MVAS will bring about a change in lifestyle of the common man according
to *Mr. Lloyd Mathias, President & Chief Marketing Officer, Tata
Teleservices Limited,* he elaborated his point by giving an example of a
fisherman from Kerala who has to sell his fish to the dealer at the rate at
which the dealer pays him, however with the introduction of MVAS, he will be
able to get the best deal available. The *chief guest* in the conference *Mr.
RN Prabhakar, Member, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, (TRAI)* had a
similar opinion and focussed on how MVAS has become so important and
innovative for the telecom operators with the intense competition bringing
down the ARPU and the tariff. Finally he concluded the speech saying “MVAS
will bring about a huge change and improve the living standards for all the
classes and the market is just ripe for bringing about and to be a part of
the change”.

Some of its features are:

• a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor
• a 3.7 inch AMOLED touchscreen display
• a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash
• a multi coloured trackball that changes colors depending on the application running
• noise cancellation technology for eliminating background noise
• new news & weather widget
• voice commands to all applications on the phone that have text input fields

Nexus One  will be sold directly to consumers through a newly launched web site at Google.com/phone.The phone is available unlocked online for $529 and for $179 through T-Mobile USA with a T-Mobile Even More individual 500 Plan, which costs $79.99 per month. Unlocked, the phone will be able to access AT&T Mobility’s EDGE data network.

Source: Fiercewireless.com

Source: Media Mughals

The so-called “vision-based input interface” uses a tiny camera to record movements of the user’s fingers then translate these movements into commands. Although this technology will undoubtedly involve a learning curve for users, it could potentially allow for faster and more dynamic control than a built-in keyboard or touchscreen display.

Source: teleclick.ca

Further Etisalat also plans to expand this service to Bangladesh, Pakistan and Egypt in the coming months.

Source: Economic Times

Have a Fantastic year ahead.

The number represents an unprecedented mobile penetration rate of over 200 per cent, placing the country as one of the highest penetration markets in the world, the regulator said. Results from the 2005 census showed that the population was 4.1 million and next census will be held in April next year.

Increase in mobile penetration rates is a trend that is also seen in the Middle East market recently despite the economic crisis. The region represents one of the world’s fastest growing mobile subscription markets with a 47 per cent year-over-year increase in 2008.

Mobile penetration in Arab countries reached 56 per cent at the end of 2008; figures across Gulf Cooperation Council countries remain much higher as the nature of the market is subject to maturity and introduction of new technologies. It is expected that the Middle East and North Africa telecommunications market is set to continue to grow in 2010, albeit at a slower pace while the telecom landscape is becoming more competitive.

Source: Khaleej Times