A Cap Gemini Survey (Cap Gemini, Telecom & Media Insights, Issue 17, May 2007) indicates that mobile IM (Mobile access to web Instant Messaging such as MSN Messenger for mobile) is generally of interest to European consumers, with more than 50% of those respondents aware of the service expressing readiness to use it. Moreover, text-based communications is becoming increasingly popular.

The Report states that in France, over half of a consumer’s time spent on communication activities is taken up by SMS, IM and email, up from 8% and growing. IM (with MSN Messenger leading in Europe) is also surpassing email in popularity on the PC, especially with the younger online population: On average, 14–21 year olds in the UK spend almost 50% of their online time on IM and only 13–15% on email.10 Such trends lay the foundation for mobile IM to gain popularity.

An analysis indicates that, in the UK, uptake of mobile IM will grow rapidly in the next few years, with IM services uptake growing from 2% in 2007 to 30% in 2012, reaching approximately 16 million consumers using mobile IM in the UK. This forecast takes into account the availability of affordable flat-fee tariffs, seen as essential for any mobile data services growth.

Increasing adoption of mobile IM will also be accompanied by higher usage. Tjat deployments (of IM communities, MSN Messenger for mobile or other) have a proven track record of boosting data usage in terms of Tjat data traffic and number of messages, but more importantly of general data usage and migration to data packages!.