This chart of leading “mobile messaging vendors” shows us much about how the core communications business has changed over 25 years. Back then, any such chart would have been expected to show text messaging leaders such as NTT, or AT&T or China Mobile.
And, to be sure, this analysis also does not focus on social media messaging platforms such as Meta’s Messenger or iMessage by Apple that are aimed at consumer communications.
This analysis focuses on enabling platforms for business-to-consumer or application-to-person use cases.
In a consumer communications context, messaging turns out to be an important feature but less a direct revenue generator.
Ovum, for example, estimates that mobile messaging revenues for mobile operators will keep declining, as will mobile and fixed voice.
If nothing else, product and revenue trends in the fixed and mobile business over the last 25 years illustrate the fact that product life cycles operate in the communications business just as they do in any other business.
International and other long distance calling once drove global industry profits. That is no longer true. Today, global connectivity profits are driven by mobile phone services. In emerging markets, revenue growth is driven by subscriptions. In mature markets growth is driven by mobile internet, in particular shifts to higher-priced plans.
In the fixed networks business, home broadband now drives growth, not voice or video entertainment.
But shifts in messaging and voice have created new industry segments. The global application to person business now seems to be bigger than the consumer text messaging market, for example.
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