By 2016, SMS Will Represent Only 1/2 of Mobile Messaging Revenue, OTT Gets the Rest

Korea’s “over the top” messaging service TicToc has set its sights abroad with the international launch of TicToc Plus TicToc Plus on the Google Play store and an upcoming iPhone app.

The recently updated TicToc Plus Android app offers unlimited calls and messages, integration with Facebook photos and YouTube videos, stickers and group chat. The app is currently available in English and Korean with more languages planned soon.

Over the top messaging apps are anything but unusual these days. But what is more noteworthy is that Tic Top Plus is owned by Korean mobile service provider SK Telecom.

Some service providers, such as Telefonica, have launched their own services. Others, such as Sprint, simply integrate with one or more favored over the top providers. Embrace or resist, every mobile operator has to have a strategy for dealing with over the top messaging and voice.

Text messaging (short message service, or SMS) still dominates the mobile messaging market in both traffic and revenue terms.

SMS revenue is forecast by Portio Research to dominate worldwide mobile messaging to 2016. MMS is the second most successful non-voice mobile service, but generates less revenue than mobile e-mail. Mobile IM generated the lowest revenue in the mobile messaging market in 2011, but it will surpass MMS revenue by end-2016.

SMS made the highest contribution to worldwide mobile messaging revenue in 2011 with a 63.5 percent share, Portio says. In 2016, SMS will continue to lead other messaging services, but its revenue share (of the then $310 billion market) will have eroded to sub-50 percent.