More than 1 million MMS users in Telia's mobile network

A growing number of people are buying camera phones and more and more mobile users are starting to send pictures over the mobile network. In October, Telia broke through the one-million-barrier for the number of registered MMS users (1.1 million in November). There are approximately 1.3 million MMS-enabled mobile handsets in Telia’s network today, and during October, seven out of ten handsets on the “top ten list” of best-selling mobile phones at Telia’s retail stores were also camera phones.

In June, July and August 2004, an average of 1.3 million MMS messages were sent per month in Telia’s mobile network in Sweden. During the third quarter, 3.8 million MMS messages were sent, as against 4.7 million during the entire first half of 2004. In 2003, 2.3 million MMS messages were sent. “It seems as if MMS is most popular in connection with special occasions. For example, holiday periods and Christmas are natural times for sending MMS messages,” says Indra Åsander, head of the Consumer Segment at TeliaSonera Sweden. “Now we have to start working on the behaviour patterns of mobile users so it will also become natural to send an MMS message in connection with everyday situations.” MMS is short for Multimedia Messaging Service and allows mobile users to customise their messages in a broader and more personal way than with SMS by combining pictures, sound and text. Seventy-eight percent of the MMS messages sent by Telia customers combine text and images, and 16 percent of the messages are also supplemented with sound clips.