MAVAM | 5. Conclusions
5
Conclusions Currently, Value Added Services in Mexico represent 33% of mobile operators’ revenue. In the second quarter of the year, sales amounted to MEX$15.09 billion (USD 1.21 billion) and grew 13% in Mexican pesos (22% in USD) over the same period of 2012. SMS and MMS services were affected by the drop in interconnection rates and price reductions resulting from packaged products and pricing models with a large number of SMSs included as part of the bundle. Due to these changes, revenue remains flat at MEX$7.77 billion (USD 0.62 billion) in the second three months of 2013. Mobile Internet driven by the scope reached by Smartphones recorded sales amounting to MEX$4.80 billion (USD 0.38 billion) in the second quarter of 2013, and it now represents 32% of VAS revenue. Text messaging is used both by those who own feature phones and Smartphones, while among the latter, OTT chat services and Instant Messaging applications gain ground but SMS remains necessary to communicate with the 80-85% of people who do not have smart devices. Among those having feature phones, SMS continues being an indispensable communication option. Coexistence of services. The existence of OTT chat services and Instant Messaging platforms, although increasing the messaging traffic significantly, does not disqualify the use of SMS. Mobile users are leveraging both types of services to connect and communicate, with 98% of those having a Smartphone using more than one instant messaging application and consider this as normal (84%). This indicates that while chat applications are popular and usage is on the increase, they do not provide the full functionality needed to enable interoperability across all messaging services, as they as used in islands and communities, and users still have to full back to SMS. Today there is no single application, that meets all consumers messaging requirements across cost, rich features and service quality which works across any platform, any device at any time.
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