Using push notifications as a marketing channel represents a US$10.9 billion annual revenue opportunity to mobile operators in the next couple of years, according to messaging platform provider Openmind.
A study carried out on behalf of the company by Mobilesquared found that this year, 181.1 million smartphone customers worldwide will download a self-care app from their mobile operator that supports push notifications – the messages that appear in a smartphone’s notification bar. That number is expected to rise to 532.4 million by 2018.
According to Openmind and Mobilesquared, operators could generate up to $2.2 billion this year by allowing brands to send simple push notifications to consumers. A further $1.4 billion of revenue could be generated by charging additional fees for allowing third parties to send push notifications that contain a call to action.
By 2018, these figures could increase to $6.6 billion and $4.3 billion respectively, resulting in a total revenue opportunity of $10.9 billion.
On a regional basis, Asia ranks by far as the biggest single market, representing a $7 billion revenue opportunity by 2018. This is followed by Europe at $2 billion, and then the Americas at $1.4billion.
"Operators can be the vital link in the value chain to enable significant upside for brands and organisations, and indeed for themselves," said Alex Duncan, CEO of Openmind, who called the push notification opportunity the "Holy Grail" of monetisation.
"With very little change to existing infrastructure and minimal investment, operators can quickly seize new revenue streams that will immediately yield real value to the tune of billions of dollars," he said.
Further research carried out by On Device Research on behalf of Openmind found that push notifications also enjoy a far higher response rate than other channels.
A survey of 3,000 smartphone users in the U.S., U.K., and Germany put the click-through rate for push notifications at 40%, compared to 10%-20% for SMS messages and 3.2% for email. 23% said push notifications were their preferred method of communication with brands and organisations .
"Consumers have never been hungrier for communications from their favourite businesses and brands, and operators’ trusted role makes them the ideal enablers of third-party communications to their subscriber base," said Nick Lane, chief analyst at Mobilesquared. "SMS has always been the most potent of marketing forces, and there is no reason why push notifications cannot equal, or even, surpass this."
