Photo messaging needs a kickstart

A SURVEY CARRIED out by Continental Research into the behaviour of British mobile phone users has some very worrying findings for network operators, particularly where cameraphones are concerned.

The Autumn 2004 Mobile Phone Report discovered that 36 per cent of cameraphone users have never sent a photo message (MMS) compared to 27 per cent in 2003. Plus the average number of messages sent per month per user has dropped from 6.1 to 3.7 messages. This is against a background of 7.5 million cameraphone users against 3.5 million in 2003.

This means that in real terms the number of MMS messages sent has risen to only 27.7 million per month compared to 21.3 million. Hence operators have failed to move cameraphone users away from merely experimenting with photo messaging to a situation where they habitually send such messages (like they do with SMS).

Part of the problem lies with education. Only 11 per cent of handset owners regard themselves as technologically savvy while nearly one third (29 per cent) are technophobes who shy away from the latest innovations. µ