The Mobile Internet Report Key Themes*

SMS Still Dominates USA Mobile Advertising Market –
Owing to Ubiquitous Reach
In USA, text messaging has become the primary communication method for many mobile users. SMS
volumes have been rising exponentially every year and the steady proliferation of intercarrier MMS
agreements has contributed to steep growth in multimedia messaging as well.
Moreover, even accounting for the advance of smartphones and the accompanying growth in mobile
Internet usage, a sizable portion of the global mobile subscriber population will likely still be using
standard or feature phones (we estimate unit shipments of 1.1B standard / feature phones in 2013E,
72% of global handset shipments) or not accessing the mobile Web as late as 2013.
Total SMS exchanged per Month (MM)
80,000
60,000
40,000
20,000
0
USA Monthly SMS Exchanged / SMS per User per Month, 6/00 – 6/08
75B
48B
29B
19B
1B 1B 1B 2B 3B 5B 7B 10B 13B
Jun-00 Jun-01 Jun-02 Jun-03 Jun-04 Jun-05 Jun-06 Jun-07 Jun-08
400
300
200
100
0
Monthly SMS per User
Total SMS exchanged per Month
Monthly SMS per user
Source: Explanation per eMarketer, data per CTIA, Morgan Stanley Research.
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