BRUNN AM GEBIRGE, Austria – Mobile text messaging usage in Europe will increase from 183 billion messages in 2012 to more than 283 billion by 2017, according to new predictions by market research firm Portio Research and mobile operator and payment provider DIMOCO. The numbers represent an increase of 154 percent.

France, the UK, Italy, Germany and Turkey will continue to lead the market, the companies noted.

“SMS is and will remain an important market in the future,” DIMOCO Chief Executive Gerald Tauchner said. “When we think about companies communicating with their customers and vice versa, there are many possibilities to use the mobile messaging channel. The application-to-person and the person-to-application segment is a strong growth market.”

Portio Research Managing Director Karl Whitfield, noted, “With the increasing focus on mobile banking, mobile payments and mobile health, we believe the contribution of the A2P/P2A-category will increase over the next years. According to our forecasts, close to a quarter of total text messages will either originate from or terminate at an application server by the end of 2017.”

According to Portio Research, the range of industries using mobile messaging in 2013 and 2014 is broad: financial services, gambling and betting, medical and health, real estate, retailers, news and sports, automotive, human resources and internal communications, schools and colleges, and others rely on the service. Portio’s data indicates SMS will roll out within all areas of the enterprise, including internal communications and logistics, supply chain and supplier communications, customer confirmations, orders and passwords, and many more.

“The key factors behind why companies favor mobile messaging are speed, reliability, price and the direct reach,” Tauchner said. “With our direct connections to mobile network operators, we offer business customers the ideal way of using A2P and P2A SMS in their communication process.”

The mobile messaging and mobile operator payment partner provides companies 1-way and 2-way messaging as well as direct messaging products to business customers.

A chart presenting a graphical look at the research data and predictions may be viewed here.