Application-based messaging taking MMS market share, according to survey from GetJar
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
UK mobile users are increasingly turning to social applications such eBuddy, mig33, Bing, Cellity, EQO, Nimbuzz, Flurry, and Trutap for messaging and photo sharing at the expense of MMS, according to GetJar, the mobile application portal. A statistically precise survey of GetJar’s UK users is claimed to have revealed that 15% had already dropped MMS in favour of application-based messaging.
Regular MMS users also said to have reported reliability and service problems, with only one third finding their attempts to send MMS messages to be successful every time. A further 31% reported that they had rarely or never successfully sent an MMS message via their mobile. The final third of users indicated that they didn’t use their phone to send photos at all.
“Only a short time ago, application-based messaging was unheard of, and now we can see a significant trend towards this form of social communication,” explained Ilja Laurs, Founder and CEO of GetJar. “Users experience a wide range of setup and compatibility issues in their use of MMS, which applications are helping them to overcome - and they are doing so for free.”
GetJar has also reported a steep climb in the popularity of messaging applications, both from developers and in the level of downloads, with over 3.7 million downloads by users per month.
GetJar’s survey received replies from nearly 600 UK users, with trends in territories such as the USA showing similar developments.
Also Mike Grenville of 160 Characters Association wrote about how MMS unreliability drives users to alternatives. If you like to read more please take a look here.
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