$50bn by 2010 - no end in sight for SMS phenomenon

SMS - text messaging over mobile phones - will grow in popularity so that the market is worth $50bn globally by 2010, according to new research.

A report by Portio Research claims: "No other non-verbal form of communication in the world is used by so many individuals and is experiencing such a rapid expansion of its user base."

However, the report's authors see growth in the mobile messaging market more broadly - they forecast rosy futures on the move for email, instant messaging (especially in the US), push-to-talk and even MMS, SMS' more feature-rich big brother, which should see similar revenues "by 2010 from considerably less traffic".

The year 2010 will see some 2.38 trillion text messages sent, leading Portio to dub the medium "the cheapest, easiest form of peer-to-peer mobile communication ever known".

In separate news, Vodafone has announced large text, video messaging and data bundles aimed at business customers.

The mobile networks giant said its own research shows a 30 per cent uptick in the use of text messaging by business customers over the past 12 months.

The new bundles will be available across shared accounts within Vodafone Perfect Fit for Business tariffs.