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15 December 2004
MMS adoption and usage 1.2 - Malaysia
Much ado about MMS offers a very informative discussion of MMS adoption and usage in Asia, illustrated by the case of Malaysia. MMS offers were launched during the summer 2003 by the three Malaysian mobile operators: Maxis Communications, DiGi Telecommunications and Celcom. But uptake and usage have been below expectations.
On average active Malaysian MMS users send about two MMS per month (South Korean users send three MMS per month), what generates a small percentage (1.3%) of the total Malaysian messaging market.
Janice Chong, Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific analyst for telecom research, explains
Users generally feel there's no compelling need for MMS for peer-to-peer messaging, and it's generally considered expensive - especially among price-sensitive Malaysian subscribers, of whom 77.5% are prepaid subscribers
The barriers to adoption and usage are identified as
- high price, MMS vary between 50 and 80 sen per message, compared to between 3 and 15 sen for SMS messages.
- purchase cost and complexity of MMS-enabled mobile phones
- interoperability problems between operators
- subscriptions, most mobile users have prepaid subscriptions and seem to be satisfied with SMS; MMS seem to be gaining ground among postpaid subscribers
Regarding prices, a Gartner Dataquest research of 12 Asia Pacific countries finds an average price of 69.5 sen per MMS, with the lowest price in Japan, equivalent to 21 sen per MMS, and the highest in Australia, equivalent to RM 2.12.
Japan and South Korea are the countries where MMS adoption is significantly higher. In Japan, however, MMS trafic grew steadily for about a year, then levelled off and declined.
Posted at 12:06 AM in Usage of Mobile Phones | Permalink
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