Graph of Industry Trends

In mature markets the level of mobile phone penetration is slowing as saturation points are reached. New mobile technologies such as MMS and Video, drive a need for new and improved devices but the total number of mobile phones in the market generally remains static.
Despite this lack of mobile phone growth, the volume of mobile phone originate calls continues to grow steadily as consumers demonstrate a preference for a wireless world.

However, it is the growth of SMS messaging, a service which has been available for a much shorter time than voice and without (in the early days at least) the support of large marketing budgets, which shows the most dramatic increase. While txt messaging pioneers were in their teens and early 20s, today those pioneers are in their 30s and their parents have learnt to use the technology from them.

Research indicates that in some mature markets, more than 75% of consumers regularly use SMS. This is a greater number than those who use email or online serves. SMS is now displacing voice as the mobilem phone communications channel of choice!

In contrast to this trend we see an interesting situation developing in call centres. In more and more countries there are customer service issues for call centres who do not offer free phone services to mobile users, primarily due to cost. A growing number of businesses bar mobile phone originate free phone services, leaving the consumer to pay for connecting to a service or sales line. This leaves these users with no alternative but to pay standard call charges to call a “free phone” service. In the UK for example, that means there is the risk of alienating the more than 44M consumers who have already demonstrated a preference for mobile phones. This clearly does not make good business sense.

Altaine is well positioned to deliver an affordable and responsive txt communications channel to those consumers who want to take advantage of the convenience of their mobile phone.