Almost 117 million text messages are sent daily
Just as quickly, as easily - but in vain: "We offer a mobile message app with which you can send messages without having to pay for an SMS," the company "WhatsApp" advertises aggressively, laying his finger in the wound of the mobile operator . Messenger services for smartphones because long ago all that a text can be - and more: the limitation to 160 characters and the whole is no longer free. Up to 40 percent of SMS revenues could be in the next four years to move to the Messenger service, industry experts predict how Roman Friedrich of the consulting firm Booz & Company.
Always new messenger programs coming onto the market: The apps are called "ping", "TextMe" or "Kik", most cost less than one euro when downloading or anything. Especially the world's largest online social network Facebook has launched its Messenger in Germany, he now works on BlackBerrys, Android phones and iPhones. The California computer giant Apple does with his program "iMessage" since this summer, but also its own, the IOS operating system built-in chat communication. Blackberry scores for quite some time with his "Blackberry Messenger". Users pay only for data transmission via mobile Internet, and which in many cases included in a monthly fixed price.
"For some customer segments such services do represent a competition," says a spokesman for Deutsche Telekom. And also at the Association of Telecommunications and Value-Added Services (VATM) to observe the development very closely, says CEO Juergen Grutzner. "Surely here is a community developed, which are in an increasingly competitive relationship with the conventional SMS."
Up to 116.9 million SMS per day
But still, the competition gathered the SMS apparently harm: 2011 were sent to Germany first estimate of the Association of Telecommunications and Value-Added Services (VATM) daily 116.9 million short messages via mobile phones, more than ever before. "The SMS has proven to be just," says management consultant Frederick. "It is immediate, direct, and their popularity is very high. The disappearance of the SMS must not fear." And even in the telecom one is sure that the text "the foreseeable future, certainly not fully replaceable" is.
This is partly due to the large hooks of the Messenger: Not all programs can switch between different phone providers send back and forth and of course the user must first have a smartphone at all. In Germany, according to the industry association Bitkom currently about one in three new mobile sold a smartphone. "But of course there are always more and thus increases the competition of the Messenger," warns Frederick. Mobile operators would have to adjust to it. "The classic SMS business model is under attack."
SMS provider means a lot for the money
And this is a lucrative - some experts even speak of a gold mine. To pay the 20 cents per SMS, many German mobile phone users. Meanwhile, however, flat rates are also widespread. The cost for the mobile operators are however low. A study of computer science professor Srinivasan Keshav of the Canadian University of Waterloo in 2009, according to data based on the American mobile operators, they come to about $ 0.3 cents (about 0.2 € cents) per SMS. Profit margins of around 80 percent are not uncommon.
Total do business with SMS in Germany about ten percent of total revenue from the mobile operator, says Roman Friedrich. In order to maintain the gains that had to be moved with the times - for example by the customer would own messenger programs offered, which were installed on the same smartphone. "This must not be affected negatively on the revenue, but may even be positive."
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