Over-The-Top (OTT) messaging traffic on chat apps like Whatsapp has surpassed the P2P SMS text traffic for the first time during 2012, according to data from Informa Telecoms & Media.
According to the data from Informa, on an average of 19.1 billion OTT messages sent per day compared to an average of 17.6 billion P2P SMS messages during 2012.
The OTT traffic is expected to grow further, with estimated 41 billion OTT messages are expected to be sent everyday compared 19.5 billion P2P SMS messages to be sent per day on an average.
The report added, there were about 3.5 billion P2P SMS users last year compared to 586.3 million messaging app users and each P2P SMS user sent five messages compared to 32.6 messages sent by OTT users.
OTT messaging traffic has overtaken P2P messaging in five years since BlackBerry Messenger was launched in 2007.
According to the report, the adoption of OTT messaging app by mobile subscribers has impacted their SMS traffic and revenues significantly in some countries like Spain, the Netherlands and South Korea.
The revenue generated from SMS revenue in Spain has dropped from €1.1bn in 2007 to €758.5m in 2011, with the adoption of OTT app.
Analysts at Informa however believe that the P2P message is not expected to ‘die out any time soon’, and the revenue instead continue to increase through 2016.
Informa analyst Pamela Clark-Dickson said the SMS growth will be driven by three main reasons and the revenue will grow to $127bn by 2016 from $115bn in 2011.
"The adoption and use of OTT-messaging apps is far from universal; although there are multiple OTT-messaging "communities" within which mobile users can message each other for free, OTT-messaging users typically use SMS when communicating with non-OTT users; and SMS is starting to hit its stride in the enterprise mobile messaging market," Clark-Dickson said.
Over-the-top (OTT)-messaging app can be downloaded to smartphones t to send instant messages freely while P2P SMS is person-to-person SMS sent through mobile.
