If you thought the hype around mobile messaging apps had reached some pretty crazy heights already - what with SnapChat apparently snubbing cash acquisition offers of $3bn and even $4bn, from Facebook and Google respectively - expect even more craziness next year. A lot more, as usage of over-the-top messaging services reaches an “inflection point”, as analyst Ovum puts it in a new report .
Ovum says it expects the number of messages to be “transacted” on social messaging apps like WhatsApp and Line to grow from 27.5 trillion in 2013 to 71.5 trillion by the end of 2014. So that's more than 2.5x in messaging volumes. If one such service, SnapChat grows at a similar rate it could mean its users are receiving more than a billion Snaps daily by the end of next year, up from the 400 million daily they're currently getting. Which (maybe) makes a $3 billion cash offer for an ephemeral messaging app seem a little less crazy. Or not.
The drivers for “social messaging”, as Ovum terms these mobile-first platforms, include the growth of affordable smartphones and access to mobile broadband (in emerging markets), plus large-scale marketing campaigns (Japan's Line does high profile TV advertising campaigns in its priority markets, for instance).
All of which will lead to the “mass adoption” of social messaging services next year, it predicts.
So if you thought the user numbers being bandied around by the likes of WhatsApp (which now hasmorethan350M monthly active users); WeChat (more than 270M MAUs); and Line (300M registered users ) were already pretty impressive, think again. There's still apparently room for growth - a lot of room for a lot more growth, according to Ovum.
The analyst notes that the “cumulative strength of the social messaging industry” has long since crossed the billion-user mark - and it's predicting that, given the current speed of adoption, “we can expect it to cross the 2-billion mark by the end of 2014″.
“Even though social messaging players have been around since 2011, only in 2014 will they become a force to be reckoned with,” the report adds.
Source: techcrunch
