Mobile Presence-Based Services $6 Billion by 2012

The value of presence-based mobile services will increase to more than $6 billion by 2012, according to Juniper Research.  Increasing smartphone penetration in developed markets, coupled with rising global usage of mobile instant messaging will help to drive the trend, says John Levett, Juniper Research analyst.

Juniper thinks the key drivers will include presence-based text message alerts and services, geolocation applications that allow people to collaorate, share location details and take advantage of local knowledge, as well as social Web applications including social networking, user-generated content, blogs and dating apps.

Up to this point, revenues from presence-based services are almost exclusively derived from operator-billed mobile IM accounts. The amount of that activity faces two contradictory trends, one might argue.

On one hand, mobile IM will tend to fare better as end user adoption of 3G or 4G services increases. Broader adoption of 3G and 4G should therefore lead to heavier use of mobile IM, which should drive higher revenues. Mobile Web applications such as IM work best, and therefore encourage use, on faster data networks.

On the other hand, operator-billed IM revenues often are based on user inability to easily use over-the-top VoIP and IM applications that do not drive operator revenues. Over time, access to such open applications will deprive operators of the ability to profit from captive IM application access.

Juniper believes there is a way to thread the needle, as mobile broadband becomes a standard service for most developed-market customers and as operators move to embrace mobile VoIP in ways that include them in the revenue streams created by some over-the-top providers.

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