Irish mobile services sector could stagnate


30 Nov 2006

Without innovation and new delivery and billing methods the market for mobile services market in Ireland will begin to stagnate, a new IBEC-backed body warned today.

The chairman of IBEC’s Mobile Messaging Forum (MMF) Eamon Hession said that international developments in mobile phone services will bring a slew of new and exciting features to the mobile consumer.

“New mobile services delivered and billed using text messages have been a huge success story in Ireland to date,” said Hession.

“However, without innovation and new delivery and billing methods this market will begin to stagnate.”

Prior to an event in Dublin today the MMF in collaboration with Enterprise Ireland began investigating the successes and failures of other mobile markets.

The investigation will result in a series of seminars on the subject, specifically what Irish businesses can learn from other markets’ experiences.

“With mobile penetration at over 100pc with 423 million SMS messages sent per month and almost eight million multimedia messages per quarter, we can clearly see that mobile services are a hugely important area for Ireland,” said MMF director Tommy McCabe.

“The mobile industry is a technology-driven industry and needs innovation to grow,” said McCabe.

By John Kennedy