Thursday, May 10, 2007

TV?? I want messaging on my phone!

The GSM Association has produced a global report on consumer awareness, trends and expectations of emerging Mobile Services across Europe, North America and Asia (based on over 3,000 interviews in 15 countries). The findings are summarized in the following table.

I can't say I am surprised, but it is hard not to notice that the top 5 preferences are all messaging. Browsing comes sixth and mobile TV eleventh... Porn seems to be missing because I would have expected it to be high in the list, or maybe it is in the "content" category, or maybe the GSM Association was just shy to ask...

On messaging, there is a quite interesting finding, although not surprising:
The survey uncovered some significant regional differences. North American respondents ranked mobile email as the service they most prefer, ahead of text messaging and mobile instant messaging. In Europe and Asia, text-messaging scored highest, followed by mobile email and MMS.
Bottom line: messaging is king. I do not see this changing any time soon. The phone is a communication device, people need to communicate when moving, they use their mobile device. Everything else is gravy.