After peaking at the end of 2008 at about €450/quarter, Spanish text messaging revenues have fallen by six percent to about €171 million in the third quarter of 2012.
As some would note, text messaging represents nearly 100 percent operating profit for mobile operators, so losing volume in such a high-margin revenue stream is a particular problem.
The reason for the declines is substitution by users of IP-based messaging for text messaging.
According to asymco, 97 percent of Spanish smart phone users have Whatsapp installed, allowing users to send free instant messages to other users.
That is cannibalizing text messaging. Use of SMS was down about 30 percent in the third quarter of 2012, for example.
Globally SMS traffic is still rising, but Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts that mobile operators will still generate a total of US$722.7 billion in revenues from SMS between 2011 and 2016.
But text messaging share of global mobile messaging traffic will fall, from this point forward, analysts suggest.
By some estimates, we are close to the point where over the top message volume should exceed that of text messaging.
In the U.S. market, for example, text messaging revenues and volume fell for the first time ever in the third quarter of 2012.
The only surprising fact is that text messaging revenue has fallen, even in the U.S. market, which has been relatively more protected from such losses, to this point.
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