AOL recently released the results of the annual survey of IM trends it conducts with the Associated Press, and it says that 25 percent of the people it surveyed send IMs from their people. The survey had about 1200 respondents; 800 of them were 19 or older. For a little perspective, 27 percent of people said they IM from work; 32 percent of of teens 13-18 that were surveyed said they IM from their mobile.
The overall number is a lot bigger than I would have expected, and it’s not as skewed by teenagers as I’d have thought either. It’s an interesting figure, particularly in light of the continued growth in SMS usage and revenues here in the US — and could be a worrying one for operators, although many US operators do highlight the IM-via-SMS services that do exist, since they boost messaging traffic and revenue.
Still, it represents a big target, particularly for companies like Trutap, whose products feature IM clients as a part of their platform, and can use them as a hook to draw in users, then introduce them to other features. Unless operators can evolve their messaging platforms to offer a more holistic experience, unifying different channels (like SMS, IM and email), their messaging revenues could be under threat.
Carlo a great data point for debate. In the UK at least most contract and pay-as-you-go tariffs includes buckets of texts that are often enough for all, so messaging revenues are not really under threat. With few new customers to be had the game now is one of churn reduction and retention. Our experience is that the operators have woken up to the concept of evolving their messaging platforms to offer a more holistic experience and along with it new Web-like revenue opportunites from advertising. The challenge is that their incumbant suppliers are stuck in the pay-per-message world and are ill placed to deliver the required solution.