Mobile messaging revenues will double by 2007 to $69bn, according to Analysys forecasts.

But the research firm inserts an important caveat: the operators must take "immediate action to drive service growth and control cannibalisation of existing revenues", if the rosy prediction is to turn into hard cash.

Network operators love SMS, because it's very, very profitable. At typical prices, one minute of voice telephony generates less than $1 per Mbyte of network resource consumed," says Mark Heath, co-author of the Analysys report. "This compares with over $1000 per Mbyte for an SMS message."

According to the report Where Next For Mobile Messaging? Driving revenues profitably and controlling cannibalisation, mobile messaging revenues are forecast to increase from $31bn in 2002 ($13bn in Western Europe) to $69bn by 2007 ($25bn in Western Europe).

Analysy reckons that total messaging volumes (SMS, MMS and mobile instant messaging/email) will quadruple from 670 billion in 2002 to 2600 billion in 2007. ®