News
Issue #2003 - 31 (December 2003)
(Updated Dec. 16, 2003)

TECHNOLOGY

Push to Talk (PTT) Market Opportunities, Market Forecasts & Market Strategies, 2003-2008

Source: emendresearch report

Two-way walkie-talkie radio technology frequently used by police officers, truckers, taxi drivers and IT managers is driving push to talk cell phone markets. The cost to arrange a quick meeting through push-to-talk is cheaper.

Low cost and convenience drive push to talk market growth. The service is based on a disruptive technology. Latency is an issue during a conversation because of the way only one person can talk at a time. Incompatibility of different technology among various providers is also an issue. The appeal of push-to-talk over making a telephone call is being able to talk to a group instantly, without waiting for someone to answer.

The systems are positioned with style. Motorola visibility at football games gives push to talk market credibility. The similarity to headset communications technology drives credibility for cellular push to talk. Every coach wears a headset. Every coach talks into the headset all game. 

Fastchat effectively turns a mobile phone into a walkie-talkie, enabling people to send and receive voice texts to and from other fastchat users immediately, either one-to-one or between a group. P2T messaging represents a significant improvement over SMS by bypassing the slow and clumsy process of entering text via phone keypad. This makes messaging quicker, more personal. For the pay-as-you-go users, fastchat provides an alternative to a credit-eating phone call. Push-to-talk will generate real growth for a number of the industry's major players, spurring GPRS adoption which, in turn, is critical to operator 3G strategy.

Push to talk has some issues relating to latency. Market participants are working to addresses relating to compatibility between different systems.

Push to talk cellular revenue estimated to be $84 million in 2003 is expected to reach $10.1 billion by 2008. Push to talk cellular subscribers expected to be 2.3 million in 2003 are expected to reach 340 million by 2008.

By year-end 2003 the number of mobile subscribers is expected to reach 945 million, with growth of 30%. 200 million new subscribers were added in 2002, a growth rate of 25%.

MobileInfo Comments and Advisory: We tend to agree with the conclusions reached by emendresearch that P2T market is going to be quite big. We can not (no body can) verify the estimates. Our criteria on the basis of which we make our judgement is a complex but rational. We expect fast chat type offerings to be available widely. Those looking at future technology in their business applications should ask vendors to indicate their direction because your users are going to need it. 

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